Waiting to be Born

The ice melts slowly
back into the lake
it had been
once before;

I feel my soul return
from the broken and
frozen-over places it
had been sleeping in

while suffering gathered
all outside my door.

The frozen earth
returns slowly to the
mud rich wetness it
has been before;

I feel my heart return
from the solid block-like icy
ground it had become
in the absence of
sweet warmth.

Spring like newness
washes over me
as the anticipation
of blooming captivates
my whole-self

with each tulip leaf
that pushes through
the dirt;

with every birdsong
that assails my soul-ears
and beckons me to
soar above this earth
and to watch the
massive greening
of the planet.

Again, the warmth
of new thawed life
sweeps itself over the
pieces of life that had
begun to feel as if they would
never come again to the
light of newness; to the
warmth of spring.

That wet dirt air
fills my head and I can
again imagine flowers
slowly taking the place if ice.
I can feel the hiking
here to replace the
winter sleep and hibernation.

There is an incredible
light in all things.
It is waiting to be born.

Another Hospice Death

You are slipping away
again.
You, the countless shifter
of faces and lives.
You are ebbing out of
consciousness again.
Going to that place
inside your form,
that place of quiet rest
and stillness.

Your face is becoming
the same again.
On yet another body,
it looks remarkably the same.
Your eyes roll up inside
their sockets.
Your mouth hangs open,
breathing from the chest -
almost gasping.

Your skin gets cold
and then hot
again and again and again.
And, it looks and feels
like tallow again.

And them, all of them
that have come to hold
your hand and
tell you that they love you,
they are all in pain
and so unsure, again.
You have pulled so inside
yourself
that you are unfamiliar
to them
and they are scared.

I have seen you pull
inside and leave
a thousand, thousand
times and it is always
the same.

Again, and again, and
again.

And yet,
you will appear anew
again and again and again
in the unfolding of yellow
daffodil flesh
in the spring
and in the
rattling cry of the
newborn child.