The Feather & The Flame

Tonight, I am less a body and more a feather
drifting on the whispers of a soft fall breeze,
a tender melody in chorus with the nighttime sky,
the stars each their own strings,
the blackness playing the deep horns,
and the voice of the ever-present moon.

In the magic of the quiet,
my heart can roam all of the forests within,
can breathe the clean air of my deepened breathing,
can watch the waters at the spillway of my heart
flow into the spirit of this life.

The skies of my truth have cleared once again.
I feel that connection to life,
these rolling hills of gratitude blooming in wildflowers.

This truth is mine to feel at any time I choose,
why can I not always dwell here…

And yet...

there is the weight of the other half,
the part of me still tethered to lists and laments,
to the ache of striving,
to the dust I breathe when the world 
forgets to be kind.

It is this paradox that shapes me:
the feather and the flame,
the stillness and the scrapes.

I know the quiet,
but I also know the thunder that walks beside it,
waiting.

Tonight, I am both.

And maybe that, too, is truth.