Homecoming

We have a lot of work to do to heal and care for this amazing planet on which we humans, along with plants and animals of all kinds, are privileged to live. And that includes caring, in tangible and systematic ways, for our fellow humans, along with the plants, animals, air, land, water. This will require changing the ways and the scale in which we think and feel. Yet sometimes it's enough to simply open our senses, to take in the gift we've been given. In doing so, we remind ourselves that with the freedom to be human, to live, to nourish ourselves, comes a sacred trust and responsibility, which each of us must fulfill in the best way that  we can.



Homecoming
 
Turning to face
coming
home
standing
just standing
 
not yearning, reaching
trying, straining
pulling away, regretting
yearning, reaching
simply standing
 
seeing myself seeing
the gray green hummingbird
as she delicately suckles
sugar water from
the garden feeder
hanging just outside
the kitchen window
 
seeing myself seeing
the green worm
laying its aphid eggs
on an almost-bursting
fuchsia rosebud,
the front door
the sidewalk
the parked cars
and beyond them
green hills
tree clumps
 
seeing myself being seen
by your blue green eyes
shining joking loving,
hearing myself hearing
the storm wind’s
wild scream up the hills
compressed to a whistle
shuddering the clay
welcome plaque
against the wooden siding
whipping up the faint
salt freshness of the bay
and the earthy smell
of wet redwood bark
 
 
vision telescoping
out and out
I see myself
floating
facing this
blue green planet
shimmering like
an eye in space
this member of a family--
moon and sun
sister and brother planets
countless galaxies
swirling dust
of great and dying
stars beyond imagining
 
standing
simply standing
simply facing
nothing to grasp
to conquer
to achieve--
just basking
in the vastness
of being
home.
 
            —Diane Elliot, Erev Pesach 5776, Earth Day 2016