THE NIGHT I MET GOD

a gentle voice enveloped me,
asking with patience
if I have been living
(truthfully).
If I have done
what I came here to do
or if I have been a rat
running so fast that I forgot
how short the race really is.
That it ends.
Forgot to look Mom
in her blue eyes
and feel the softness
of her freckled skin,
forgot to hug every friend
as though their life
could converge into oblivion,
forgot to fully give thanks
to each tree, herb and seed,
forgot that there are gardens
bigger than one brain,
two brains,
three brains can weed.
Now, you don’t get a trophy
when you cross this finish line,
but you realize
that what you wanted
was never a trophy or a prize.
I returned home to a place
that knew me like its hand,
knew me like a grain
of cosmic sand
and told me that it’s okay
to live free,
to believe in the vastness
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that exceeds you and me,
to stop clinging to objects,
material things,
you aren’t bringing any jewels
or dollar bills
to your grave.
You have now and that’s it.
What a shiny thing.
What is life?
What is death?
What are both but a flash?
A kaleidoscope of memories
unraveling the past,
from the womb,
to this room,
to the inevitable tomb,
who knew that what you’d forgotten
was all you needed to bloom?
That it’s simple,
love alone was always enough,
the reason, what prevails,
spinning, hurling,
there’s no hell,
here nothing dies,
no one’s telling human lies,
I’ve come to learn there are limitations
to my own two eyes.
This voice listened to me,
heard every faint, muted cry,
soothed me and laughed at
my insistence of WHY?!
Perhaps mystery is the most fine,
divine gift of all,
being able to recall
how quickly we move
from one world to the next.
One hit.
Through a portal.
And everything’s gone.
Sure, the journey can feel unbearably
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long but there are lakes
to dip your feet in
and poppies to sniff,
layered between places unfathomably
wider than this.
I can see it still
like it was last night’s dream,
the once-familiar erupting
into stardust, Earth seemed
untouchable,
like peeking through one-way glass.
It happened so fast and I was back
in a flash.
Back on the track,
this time not a rat,
not here to race but to pace
myself, to water the tomato plants
and write my grandma cards,
to exercise my favorite muscle:
the human heart,
to watch cows graze,
cicadas buzz,
bees sting,
to find contentment existing
(for now) where jays sing.
Balancing delicately on the tightrope
between being trivial,
insignificant,
no better than the rest,
yet a vessel for divinity,
not the taker of a test.
It’s a practice,
how to juggle being conscious,
not disturbed,
but I am grateful
for how this voice
illuminates the world.
I will hold my best friend’s hand
in the rain and skip,
I will get naked at night
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and take a cold-river dip,
I won’t be bound by those stuck
in a wheel,
we are here for each other,
we are here to heal.