Someone Will Say

As well as you can, be light in your body, and light on your feet. Be the light in your body. As well as you can, be the well from which the light emanates. And be home in your body as you are home in the earth. For your body is the earth, and not only the earth, your body is the nearest and farthest star, a little cloud chasing after its mother. Your body is a rainbow. Vivid now, vivid, and, then, there arrives the softest, gentlest blur, that ends where it begins, and begins where it ends, and never begins, and never ends. And that is what listening is. A lullaby, a cradle, and you wonder, was the universe ever really so small? And the hand rocking it, infinitely patient. Someone will say, my dear mother was just like that. Someone will say, my grandmother, my aunt. And many will regret ever having gone off to war, having been unkind, having thought they were somehow different, or better. Be the light in the cradle. Be the hand on the wood. Be all that you can, not what you should. Vivid now, vivid, with the softest, gentlest blur.

[ 1945 ]