when I feel as if my feet
are fashioned of mud
and my tongue is made of sand,
when my thoughts and emotions
grow stagnant as if trapped
behind a dam of self,
that is when I remember
there is a silence inside me
ever waiting for me to slip into it.
That silence is patient as a lake
untouched by wind.
No matter the storm
I perceive outside me,
those inner waters remain still,
still enough to mirror the outside world
without their inner depths being changed.
Sometimes I wade at the edge.
Sometimes I feel it, the invitation
to not only wade, but to swim,
to dive into the depths of the unknown,
trusting it always gets deeper.
I notice that when I dive in
it scares me to not feel dry.
I notice that when I dive in,
it is then I am most alive.
Now when I feel stuck,
it feels less like a problem
and more like a chance to see
where I’m in the way,
a chance to wonder what else is here,
to enter the lake of the unknown
with a willingness to be changed
by what I find there.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer