Ocean of Sky

OCEAN OF SKY

The cloud shelf drifts toward what

still seems possible and the trees throw

up their arms wanting to follow and the

Brazilian singer in the iPod is pleading with

me to give up all that drags my heart. Now

the sparrows out of nowhere dart in all

directions like the tail of a sparkler set

off in the beginning. And the singer a

continent away sings. I don’t understand

a word but feel him like a brother, like

a voice wanting me to wake, like a secret

spilling from the lips of a forgotten god.

Oh, we’ve made it to another fall. The

wind swirls in and out of all my regrets.

We are alive. We are alive. We are alive.

A Question to Walk With: Describe what trait most enables you to endure.

Sounds True recently published a new, expanded edition of Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness, which gathers twenty-eight years of my writing and teaching about suffering, healing, and wholeness, including thirty-nine new poems and prose pieces not yet published. One of the great transforming passages in my life was having cancer in my mid-thirties. This experience unraveled the way I see the world and made me a student of all spiritual paths. With a steadfast belief in our aliveness, I hope what’s in this book will help you meet the transformation that waits in however you’re being forged. Ocean of Sky is an excerpt from the book.