It
didn't behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn't stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn't
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
which is what I dream of for me.
Today
there is a nor'easter bearing down on
where I live in New York. The wind will blow and the few leaves that still
cling to our trees and bushes I imagine will be slapped down by the back hand
of a winter storm. To stay safe, the
region's residents will take shelter for the next 24 hours, staying out of harm's
way.
I remember once when I was 15 by father
backhanded me, bloodying my nose, and I wonder how this and other assaults, perceived
and otherwise, cause me to hunker down still, withdrawing so as to keep
safe. Each of us has cause to blame human
kind for being wrong and inflicting so much pain upon one another and this
world. We have reason to despair. We
also have choice to invite in love and life's crazy and erratic possibilities.
Alas we cannot stay out of harm's way, but we put ourselves in beauty's way.
As
leaves uncurl in thanks to the sun's gift of light, we too can shift. There are no wrong seasons for life, love, joy,
and peace. Just when you thought the
world before you was painted with one heart killing color, a splash comes or a
drop, the canvass of your conceptions now ruined.
Why
do our minds seek unilateral thinking? I
am sure it is for some evolved survival reasons this judging we do when we call
one thing good and another bad. Our subconscious minds evolved so we can react
quickly to threats without. This survival orientation though paints over the
interdependent reality where beauty brushes up against the cruelest act. We imagine ourselves too busy avoiding tigers,
angry fathers, and murderous tribes to see the whole - no separation between this
one snow storm and leaves that die, and new ones to surprise and surpass us
all.
*******
Questions to journal by:
Where have you felt slapped down in life?
Has healing come to you? How?
What have you learned from the storms in your
life?
Is it possible to see beauty in tragedy?
