In my life-long impatience, how much I have missed. Last night, washing the dishes, I really looked at my iron frying pan in the dishwater. The light made visible for a moment a tiny rainbow—a light through water revealing all the colors of life. It is so easy to miss the tiny symbols. Finding them is quite different from the business of trying to hatch up big symbolic experiences. It is RECOGNITION, not PURSUIT, of meaning—recognition of the sacramental, of the intersection of the two worlds, breaking through unsought because one is ATTENDING.
Let rain be rain.
Let wind be wind.
Let the small stone
be the small stone.
May the bird
rest on its branch,
the beetle in its burrow.
May the pine tree
lay down its needles.
The rockrose, its petals.
It's early. Or it's late.
The answers
to our questions
lie hidden
in acorn, oyster, the seagull's
speckled egg.
We've come this far, already.
Why not let breath
be breath. Salt be salt.
How faithful the tide
that has carried us—
that carries us now—
out to sea
and back.