Though it’s July, the grass is iced
from last night’s frost, and the heart-shaped leaves
of the pole beans hang limp and dead.
And so the chance to practice letting go.
It’s too bad, of course,
but the stakes are low.
It was only one row,
a handful of seeds,
a hankering for fresh green beans.
Not a livelihood. Not a child.
Not a hope. Not a dream.
Just a small row of leaves
that do what leaves do.
No one to point a finger at.
No one to pick a fight with.
Just this practice of meeting
the world as it is. This chance to start again—
the work of the living.
Seems we’ve had too much letting go practice, of late.
Yes, and, isn’t that the way they say it goes?
all this letting go
said the hands,
and nothing to show for it
LOVE!!!! Especially the final line. Brilliant.
(it’s gonna be tomorrow’s Quote of the Day, for the hospital cafe’s menu board.)
I love the metaphor. I wish I had thought of it when the woodchuck demolished my row of cosmos.
ha! yeah, it’s easy to take it all personally and quite to heart! this poem is most certainly me trying to remember that it’s just a practice, just a practice, but darn.
I need those reminders myself.
How prescient, these words, dear friend, over three years back now. We avert our hearts from their truth, preferring not to admit to ourselves what you name so well here–we rehearse it over and over again, practice it every day in small turns this “meeting the world as it is,” with every loss prefiguring the Loss, every heartaches whispering the Heartache, every ending trembling with the End…
“…this practice of meeting / the world as it is. This chance to start again— / the work of the living.”
How brave to say it–and difficult to live it some days. Wishing for you an astonishing courage this day to both hold and be held by the Everything of life. And so grateful for your generous heart that so often touches mine.