December 21  By Nancy Schatz Alton

The whole world is you/ Yet you keep thinking/ there is something else.-Hsueh-Feng

 

Or that I should be someone else.

But I am very much yourself—

unloading the dishwasher

as the next right thing

then feeling how good it feels to be doing.

Where are your hands?

I’m picking up the warm & dry dishes

& placing them where they want to go.

Where do you want to go?

Where the people are—

the women come and go. Talking of Michelangelo.

I’m a love song all day long

looking for connection

buzzing from the energy

that flies around every room

until I center myself

in the tree that connects my legs

to the ground

the ground Annie told me to lay on

to feel with my whole body

& listen

listen—

what do you want to do with this one precious life?

listen & sing & be with each other

making up this dance

the same way I make up my days—

what’s next?

Emptying the dishwasher is often what’s next.

Steam & heat & a way to take my hands

and place them in this world

even as my heart hopes what is next

for those that have left

is more beautiful than the hurt

that hurts my heart.

This shortest day contains much light.

I hope it lifts us to better days.

Cliché or dream, I play at faith

& call it a poem.