Again it rears up, this familiar worry
that I am not doing enough to protect
and honor this world and all who dwell in it.
Worry slithers around my chest and constricts,
writhes in me as if my belly has become a bed
of slow moving snakes, all of them hissing,
You should be doing more. Somehow
I had not let myself see they were here.
No shame there—of course they love to hide,
preferring shadows to sun, and now,
this morning, I see they have multiplied—
as if the cobra of perfection and the cobra
of fear have mated, mated often, and now
there’s a vast quivering inside that will not
be ignored. I have read you should never attempt
to touch, catch, provoke or kill a cobra.
I imagine it’s the same with worry.
What it needs from me is not to tame it,
not to destroy it, not even to soothe it,
but to give it space, to keep myself calm,
and most importantly to not pretend it isn’t there.
Oh worry, I see you. Of course, you make me
uncomfortable. I see how you live in a den
fashioned of tenderness and love for the world
so great I want to be in service. All my life
I’m learning to make room for what I can’t control.
All my life, I am learning to trust
how even the unwanted is necessary,
how it maintains the balancing of the whole.