Readiness looks
a lot like emptiness.
Not only the sage brush
beside the road, nearly void
of its thin green leaves, waiting
the warmth to fill out,
but also the blank shelf
where the stories used to sit,
locked in their hard covers.
All that weight. All that dust.
Look at the field, the gray mat
disappears into the earth
even as the green licks
push toward the light,
jockeying to reconstitute the field.
Are we ready for real love?
Everything leads me
to this question.
If we are, it’s not because
we can answer .
This is not a test.
That old cottonwood,
not a leaf on it yet,
has a lot it can teach us
about patience. About wait.
About emptiness.
Readiness
March 30, 2013 by Rosemerry
2 Responses
Leave a Reply
Sign up for my daily poem!
Archives
Meta
A great comparison up front, not what a reader would expect. I’m not quite sure what to make of the shelf and the books, but I do think the natural turn toward the earth is where I want to go anyway, and that old cottonwood is the perfect encouragement. Happy Easter.
A repeated image, from yesterday, of emptiness where the story(ies) used to be. (Whatcha been thinking, hmmm?)
“Readiness looks/a lot like emptiness.” Well, yeah. Seems to me readiness equates with acceptance; and if your arms are loaded down with stuff, then there’s no way you can accept anything additional. If they’re emptied, then they’re ready for whatever may arrive.
“Are we ready for real love?” Are we ever? And does it matter? Love comes unto us’n—ready or not.
“…that old cottonwood is the perfect encouragement,” anon says. Hunh. I hadn’t thought of it as encouragement, but anon is absolutely right.