spring

The stars up in the bright sky
When it's nighttime.
The people eating inside.
The animals eating outside.
Amen.

When someone deeply listens to you it is like holding out a dented cup you've had since childhood and watching it fill up with cold, fresh water. When it balances on top of the brim, you are understood. When it overflows and touches your skin, You are loved... When someone deeply listens to you, your bare feet are on the earth and a beloved land that seemed distant is now at home within you.

...the house of my soul is narrow; enlarge it that thou mayest enter in.

Because this bird is singing to me,
I belong to the wide wind,
The people far away who share
The air and the clouds.
Together we are looking up
Into all we do not own
And we are listening.

And one day, when I need
to tell myself something intelligent
about love,

I'll close my eyes
and recall this room and everything in it...

What we speak becomes the house we live in.

This is the bright home
In which I live,
This is where
I ask
My friends
To come,
This is where I want to love all the things
It has taken me so long
To learn to love.

The same stream of life that runs through the world runs through my veins night and day and dances in rhythmic measure. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the Earth into the numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of flowers.

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.