How I Wish To Live

 

Bathing daily in birdsong

Seen by stones wherever they find me

Cherishing my children, respecting their gifts and listening well

Laughing with friends, holding them close

Lavished with skies, blue and gray-clouded

Soaking up storms showering my bones

Smiling with Spring’s cobalt-bloomed iris

Amazed by my grandchildren, chasing and giggling, kissing their cheeks

Received by the substance of Silence, the givens of living

Awakened by a lemon tree bursting plump fruit

Penetrated often by beauty, by the wonder of love

Contented with the ache of my heart’s longings

Relishing breath and body’s great wisdom

Sitting still as a stone in precious morning

Satiated and nourished by sureness of feet on the trail ahead

Open-mouthed in delight when hummingbirds appear

Befriending spaciousness of simple unknowing

Laying down in meadows on thick grasses often

Belonging to life like the oak, the hawk and the toddler, 

the cougar and boulder on the broad mountain

Enfolding my lover in her every weather

Bathing in birdsong, again and again