The Gift
Time wants to show you a
different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one
waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in
her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after
the sermon.
It's the way life is, and
you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in
various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)
You get tired of
that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come -
maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath
without pain. It is called happiness.
It's a balance, the taking
and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and
weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing
where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of
ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here,
take it, it's yours."
~ William Stafford
~
(The Way It
Is)
(left button to play, right button
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