A Message

“Tell me, what is the point?”

My soul cries on dark days

When the heaviness drags at my bones.

“Is it worth going on?

Must I do this again

When I’m nothing but sorrows and stones?”

And the universe says,

With a voice like the stars,

“My dear thing, this is only the start.

I will show you the point,

And the secret I know,

If you simply will open your heart.

You can find it in ponds,

Under brown mushroom caps,

On the plains or the grey mountaintops.

You can find it in schools,

Between hospital beds,

Within chapels, apartments, and shops.

It’s the leap of a fox

Into blankets of snow

And the song of a wren in the sky.

It’s the grin of a girl

Taking daring first steps

And an old man first learning to cry.

The point is just living,

The point is just loving,

Laughing, grieving, and trying again.

It’s the sun and the moon,

The expanse of the sea,

And the brightness that follows the rain.

It will hurt, it will ache,

It will drag at your bones,

But as long as you listen, I’ll call

In the baby-green leaves

That wave greetings in spring,

Then, red-gold, bid you rest in the fall.”