I Ran

I ran so far across noble terrain, full of intent to prove love makes us whole,

to prove love is what we’re here for,

to prove unity grows from and within love,

to prove the living of this life truly worthwhile,

to prove love can transform all the worst demons,

to be empowered despite loss, to be present ‘though pushing through disease,

to be accepting and expectant without entitlement because love,

and so, I ran hard at the work, in the work, in the rest and the play of it all.

And I hiked.

And I climbed.

And I fell, and I fucked some things up.

And I coasted, and I even flew.

And here I am looking down and across the miles behind me.

And I have loss and miscarriage where I least expected.

And I have declarations of love coming at me that ring empty, devoid of any action to make it real,

And rejection of who I am, of how I am who I am, blithe, unseeing and judgmental eyes looking back at me, forgetting when we laughed and held on, forgetting all the love knitting.

And I have proof of love’s work and unity where I least tried and with some unexpected.

And I have uncommon bonds, those seldom known, the kind of connections few experience.

And I have proof I can persist and release, celebrate and grieve.

And I know that love doesn’t make us whole as much as it melts into loss, imparting resilience, filling up the cracks.

And love doesn’t raise the dead, this I know, too.

And I have a crisis of meaning if I look at the lost harvest and the heartaches love couldn’t resolve.

And I have endless grief if I look long at the hurt life handed the ones I thought I could protect, the disease I thought preventable, the power I thought I had, we had.

And I want not to run.

I want not to climb.

I want to release proving.

I want to accept what needs accepting.

I stand looking at the path behind me and there’s a woman clawing her way up the summit.

Her hands are amazing, their strength endless and her legs flex with all the sinew I once knew.

The sun has loved her and the moon, too.

The earth delights in her ministrations.

The rivers know her soul intimately and she sings their songs.

One glance at her climbing my way and I know.

She’s singing and has paint on her chin, ink on her palms, dirt under short fingernails.

There’s a bit of moss and flower in her hair, wild.

She has some wands on her back, ones I thought were forever gone.

Those locks are flaming red, none of the sprinkles of gray gracing my own head.

She isn’t smiling, but she keeps singing strange chants tugging at my core.

She simply won’t stop.

She’s got the air of one who knows and instantly I remember her from dreams past and from dances under leaves, twirling innocence.

We were one, before the running began.

And I can’t remember anymore when it began.

But she couldn’t keep up with me in the clamor of my proving or the running towards meaning.

She had to do her own thing until I stopped.

She grips for the final reach and grasps up at my hand,

And we pull each other up.

She stands now in front of me and we’re facing.

And she wants to know if I’m ready now to know the deeper work of tRuth,

the one not dependent on proving anything.

She wants to know if I’m finished racing for what is and was always right here.

She knows the foundational work and breaking up of my defenses has been more relevant than all the racing to prove.

She knows the running for love, climbing and building, resting and dancing are not made futile by the scant returns or the seeming and actual loss.

She just knows more deeply what is more important than any other work now.

She knows me as my own teacher and my own saboteur.

She hugs the grieving, weeps the years ravaged by an illness that has yet to release me.

And she reminds me, insists I see that the miles stretched out behind us reveal the real, the deepest work of love was made more by love itself and by open-heart collisions than by the most potent intent or tenacious presence.

And so, now we can begin

singing,
singing,
singing

over these bones.