yes

the world is my monastery.
i will chant prayers under my breath
at all hours of the night or day.
with pure attention,
wash clothes and dishes,
feed my family.
i will feast around the table--
break bread, drink wine,
hear the sound of my own laughter.
i will welcome every stranger as the Christ,
offer sanctuary to the exile
even when the exile is myself.
i will sit in the silent cell of my heart
distilled down to one smoldering
flame of desire;
see burning bushes everywhere.

life is my canvas.
i will cast out my creativity
like seeds in a field
and wait in anticipation
for a harvest of joy.
i will take note of--and play with--
color, movement, texture,
incandescence;
swing my arms wide in
explanation and demonstration.
i will fall in love a thousand times
and a thousand times more;
be mesmerized, enchanted, seriously delighted
and not once
and not once
silence my voice or hide my heart.

when i press into my life,
i am like a tuning fork
vibrating with a
recurrent, resounding
yes.

self-portrait

i don't care about your
certainties and your correct answers.
tell me instead what it is that you love--
and why.
tell me have you made friends with
loneliness and disappointment;
are you intimate with beauty and gladness?
do you let life's daily humiliations
return you to the ground of your being
or do you pretend they don't exist?
do you let the sharp piercing
of sorrow or joy
move you to the edge,
take you through a doorway,
so that you can shed your skin
and emerge transformed?
tell me, have you mined the secrets
of your shadow self,
felt the curse of it and
turned it inside out to find the gift?
do you know how to breathe underwater
and do you know what it feels like to fly?
tell me.
tell me and
i will listen.