Fighting the Instrument

Often the instruments of change

are not kind or just

and the hardest openness

of all might be

to embrace the change

while not wasting your heart

fighting the instrument.

The storm is not as important

as the path it opens.

The mistreatment in one life

never as crucial as the clearing

it makes in your heart.

This is very difficult to accept.

The hammer or cruel one

is always short-lived

compared to the jewel

in the center of the stone.

A Question to Walk With: Tell the story of a storm you endured and what it opened in you.

Next month, Sounds True is publishing a major collection of my poetry, The Way Under the Way, which contains three separate books of poetry, gathering 217 poems retrieved and shaped over the past twenty years. These poems span my life’s journey and they center on the place of true meeting that is always near, where we chance to discover our shared humanity and common thread of Spirit. The above poem is from the book.

*photo credit: Kirsten Hagerty