below our favorite magnolia tree
where we sit in the chilly,
spring air wrapped tightly
in our blanket
with our squinty eyes closed
facing into the full sun
for warmth
for light.
We hide pieces of ourselves
behind the rocks, just along
the stream bed where we taught
our children to see the minnows
and the crayfish and to notice
how they move against the
flow of water
kicking up silt
from the bottom
in clouds as
they shimmy and
go on their way.
We hide pieces of ourselves under
the crisping, golden fallen leaves
of autumn
on the paths we have taken year
after year after year
careful to shuffle and part the leaves
with due ceremony and a symphony
of sound only flurries of leaves can make.
We hide pieces of ourselves
under the lower eyelids of our children
as we wipe away the tears of hurt
and pain from things gone terribly wrong
and then again under the wrinkled
crenellations at the edges of their smiles
from things gone terribly right.
That is who we are.
We scatter ourselves
in hints and suggestions,
in flickers and in glints,
in innuendo and whispers
among the stuff that gives us meaning,
amid the who and what that feeds us
and slakes our deep
and human thirst.
We grow on the hope and thrive
on the promise that we will return
to these people,
to these passages of our lives,
to these spaces of our wholeness.
Return to endlessly gather
the breadcrumbs of all we have encountered:
family and friends,
trees and streams,
paths and small swimming things.
They hold the stanzas of our poems,
they hold the verses of our songs
the songs we hear at sunset
on the wind
as it blows our hair
across our face
and we squint
into the sun so we can
smile the deep smiles
of satisfaction at being alive
at the end
of another day.
We hide ourselves in the people,
and the places we love, so every step
of our journey is a coming home to our
true selves and our communities of belonging
We hide ourselves in all we love.
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