She remembers how at the orchard
the wind would sometimes
rip the ripening fruit from the trees.
Not because it was cruel.
It was wind doing what wind does.
And life does what life does.
It takes. It gives. It takes. It gives.
Not because life is cruel or generous,
but because it is life.
Look how the word why forms on her lips—
look how saying the word
requires a small pucker like a kiss.
She doesn’t seem to expect an answer.
Perhaps she is practicing
how to lean into the silence that always follows
when she asks the unanswerable.
Perhaps she is practicing how to kiss the unknown.
If she could have stopped the wind from blowing,
she would have. If she could have stopped
her son from dying, her father from dying,
her friend from dying, she would have.
Instead, she is learning this:
no matter how much she does,
no matter how good, how quick,
how noble, how loving, how well-intentioned,
life will do what life does.
And still the invitation
to bring to every moment her best,
which is to say whatever
the moment asks of her.
See her hair blow in the wind.
The only thing she can do
is choose to notice the place within
that remains still no matter
how hard the wind blows.
Perhaps she will learn how this stillness, too,
is life doing what life does.