It’s not hard to grow when you know that you just don’t know.
—Damien Rice, Cannonball
Tonight I am wanting
the formula, some simple
equation that makes it all
add up. Like this: take the name
of a favorite bird. Add
the common herbs
from the country
of your father’s birth.
The month you were born.
The name of the tea
you last drank.
Heron. Caraway.
November. Mint.
But this list as ridiculous
as any other attempt
to make sense. There is no recipe,
no ritual, no seven easy steps.
No map will show us
the soul’s path. And where
are we going? I heard
of a woman who went
in a boat with a group
of native fishermen.
As they pushed off from shore,
she noticed that no one
had paddles or oars.
“But how will we get where
we’re going?” she asked.
The fishermen laughed
and said that the water
would take them wherever
they needed to go.
Oh woman who wants
to know, can you let go
like that? Life, it keeps falling away.
Have you noticed?
And what does it give us back?
This moment with its vast
unknowns where
anything can happen.