The past few weeks have been rough. The past few years have been rough, if I’m really honest. But though I don’t often talk about it ‘out loud’, I’m intensely grateful there has always been a counter. Often from the people around me, but sometimes just in those random moments the sun hits the leaves just right, the steak I had for dinner was perfectly cooked, or the breeze lifts my hair gently, cooling my heated brain.

Though most of my efforts were penned in the last 18 months, the following piece of prose poetry emerged maybe twenty years ago. I’m glad I wrote it down. It comes back to me the more strongly, for having searched out the words and committed them to paper. Always there when I need it.

Benediction

Have you ever noticed the stillness that gently calls when the world is just being?

Not doing. Just being. Waiting for us to notice. 

I notice it most in the shifting Summer, as afternoon slants towards dusk. The world is embraced in light. Kindling from within each tree, each home, and the passing breeze. A singing glow that remakes each line and shape and colour more true. More real. The radiant trees seem almost to burst in their perfect, vibrant stillness. The luminous faces of buildings speak of people who have grown and loved and lived within their walls.

I love the world I live in. Those moments of stillness when I feel the world sing, hold my moments of silent thanks.