First day of the retreat

Our assignment is to watch what arises. Watch it, hold it, turn toward it, know it, and let it go.

Late summer wildflowers
fling color with abandon,
cornflower blue in a sway
of golden-brown grasses.
Water droplets float like glass
spheres on blushing crabapples,
misting rain insinuates
itself tenderly into every
opening, crevice, crease.
Joy keeps on arising:
joy as legitimate
as any heartbreak, rich
as longing, vibrant as rage.
A brave heart stretched wide
by sorrow is grateful at night,
grateful again at dawn, all day
filled to bursting with gratitude.
The crickets sing, "Yes-yes,
yes yes" with us, the whole
chorus with us, with us floating
light as filaments of spider silk
glinting in sunlight, as airy,
as impermanent, as momentary
and as fully offered.