Wisdom

It's been a tough week, and I find myself emotionally exhausted on Sunday morning. In the course of my pottering, I clear out the bedside table drawer to find a volume of verse, a birthday present from a friend. His note in the frontispiece guides me to four poems, among them one that resonates beautifully:

Trying To Ripen
By Linda Gregg

I thought if I lived alone
in stillness, God would be closer.
Or if I lived beyond aging and dying.
Now I look at the birds
and the orchard with longing.
There is ripe fruit on the ground.
It is time for migration,
but I am still not transformed.
I have become like the desert.
Today I saw a large red snake
and a covey of quail
strong enough now to fly over
the fence. I saw distance.