A Quiet Homecoming

Tonight, the sheer curtain 
doesn’t dance,
it breathes.
Slow, deep inhales,
a soft exhale into the room.

And what quiet magic this life becomes
when even the night breeze
speaks.

Today, I stepped back
into the well-worn shoes of myself,
familiar, softened by time,
yet lighter somehow,
as if a small spring
has found its place in my step.

And all at once,
the ache deepens.
Tears gather,
waiting at the edge

yet alongside them,
a warmth,
a homecoming.

A return
to the place within
that knows how to hold me.

I have missed this.
This presence.

Oh, to be a master,
to stand unmoved
as suffering rises and falls,
to find stillness
even in the storm.

And yet,
I return.

Again and again,
sometimes only long enough
to dip a toe into the water,
trace its surface,
and retreat to land.

But sometimes,
I float.

Out there,
in the middle of Lake Maloya,
beneath a soft, moonlit sky,
ancient volcanoes standing silent
all around.

Wings pass close overhead,
close enough for my heart to feel. 

An elk’s call
sends shivers down my neck.
Small feet whisper
through fallen leaves.

The water carries me,
gentle, rhythmic,
rocking me
into a quiet,
wild peace.

The Bridge:  the quiet return to what holds us

We spend so much of our lives moving, reaching, carrying, becoming, that we forget there is a place within us that does not move at all. A place that waits, steady and open, no matter how far we feel we have drifted.

Sometimes we touch it only briefly, like a toe in the water, a moment of stillness before we return to the noise of living. And sometimes we find ourselves floating there, held by a wild peace that brings us home to ourselves. 

This is the quiet return.  A soft settling into the truth that we are already held, already known, already home.