The Smoothing

There is an undoing

that is not against

the growing of

tendrils and roots.

A smoothing

of the edges of

it all.

A sloughing off of

the dead cells

of atrophy and

bitter disregard.

A convoluted

but undisguised

carrying away

of all that is

not given

to the supple

and tender warmth

of needful things.

Even the icy

river knows

the warmth

of needful things.

I watched myself

coil up around my

own gritty intolerance

of a stranger

and the path they

choose to be

their own across

this trackless

land of life.

This is not a

needful thing.

This shard

of glass

under my nail

needs gone.

The bank exposed

by the mighty torrent

seems rough

and indisposed toward

grace and the finer

things of this colossal

life of repeated and

fathomless mercy.

But time, oh the

winds and sands

of abrasive time will

smooth the jagged

edges – exposing rock

and root for the

endless eyes of our

watching. Even

against all will.

The rounding

of things makes them

less work. Sandstone

becomes easier to

look at.

We find the rest

in abraded places –

a laying aside of

our parasympathetic

drive to integrate

conflict into safety;

a downgrading

of our desire to flee.

I have seen great logs

move down and away

from their knotted nests

of chaos and upheaval

along the river’s path.

Tangles beyond the

touch of understanding

have been untied;

released their way

to go into the night of

turbulent flotsam and

unleashed angst.

But then,

there is

always more.

Can I survive the

aging of my sons

without losing too,

too much of my

incomplete joy

to the worries and

woes of the subtle

dying of their youth?

Does a grizzly

grieve the innocence of the

aging of its cubs?

All at once

my wrestling

with this will end;

one strand of

it will give way

to a constant releasing

of the whole Gordian

conglomeration and mess

of emotion and desire.

I have seen it

a thousand, thousand

times against the

topography of

my own soul.

Fighting a thing –

long enough –

wearies the muscle

into a slumped

relaxation that pulls

it out and away

from the conflict.

In tiredness

it falls to the

ground as if

the battle itself

has enabled a retreat

that has saved its

life.

A soul grows

this way in

the abrading of all

it is. At the end

of the day it finds

beauty in what it

has become because it

has learned to

release its hold.

Valleys fill in,

mountains wear

down; and, the

untold process of the

Waterfall Way is

a smoothing.

Make friends with

that smoothing.