Consider the Lilies

Consider the lilies,

He said,

How they do not toil or spin,

And I did.

I considered them:

I got down on my hands and knees,

Belly to the ground,

And pushed my hungry face

Deep into the blossoms.

I breathed in the flowers,

And I took in everything--

Blossoms, stems, leaves, roots--

Right down to the hard dark

Of deep earth,

Where life begins.

And I’ll be damned,

But I cannot explain myself.

I ate those flowers

One at a time--

A sacramental rite,

The claiming and naming,

Knowing and feeling

The pulse of those flowers,

My pulse,

The freedom.

You know it.

It is your pulse.

There can be no sorrow in this.

No anger.  No fear. No doubt.

There can be only joy

Rooted in the evanescence

Of every dream--

Which is to say,

Everything.