While You'all Travel

THE GUARDIAN

It is known that some things are seen more clearly by lantern flame than searing sun; to perceive life more by view of heart than squinting eye, perhaps. As shadows soften and mask harshness, so do they also conceal –
allowing dreams to defuse yesterday’s pain and confusion. They also hide me.

I have taken to sitting in that slight depression by the gate, the crumbled alcove where once a daunting statue stood, or so I can imagine. My honored tasks of lantern care and singing up the dawn still tingle in my soul, and I rest a bit – not from weariness, but that I may blend with ancient stone, and trill of birds and eternal sinewed wrestling between oak and vine.

Within me too there comes a balance of forces new and old, birth and death, with growth rings added to the core of my being. As I am then of dappled shapes of tawny, muted passions; I merge with the stones and earth – and by this ritual become invisible, my presence touching all who pass; and from their lighter step I know that all is well.

There was a time that I might have jumped down and out, to join the simple jests and banter of the throng. There is a vitality to that – to know life is to life, after all. Yet learning comes from listening and wisdom from embracing silence – all in a variegated braid with doing – frantic churning of imagined needs. I have enough of that, the ‘doing what no other will’. Now ‘tis time to ‘be what no other can’, and I will. I finger the Cross of Jerusalem suspended from the thong about my neck – a reminder of a path and wounds and universality. I grasp sure my seasoned staff that bonds me with Mother Earth and prepare to leap into …
No!
I will have faith!

I will sit here in blessed solitude and gather in the whispers of the dew. The hush will carry to me the shy smiles of maidens and awkward pretensions of eager swains. Each traveler here holds a secret that they would share, if they dare, and not so concerned with bustling through the gate. But I know! And of these, and the dancing faerie pollen pulsing with the breeze, and the laughter of the sunlight and ancient footprints in the dust will my cloak be ready. Ever ready in a gossamer tapestry of song and will and knowing – I can cast it out to settle over, ever gentle, the petty squabbles and fractious pains of inattention.

I fancy myself a guardian, you see. Those who may enter the Abbey here, those willing to rise as the lotus opens in the pond, will leave some of their tear stained rags, and broken sandals and remnants of needless fears and grief. I need only be present. I will watch over this refuse – until it too blends with the moldering leaves and drifting feathers and soot from evening fires – until I can move on... be visible again …

until tomorrow’s circled song.

papa