In muted resolve the sky pastes thick, blue robes against the horizon. The mountains thrust their peaks into the rich blue, where the snow sets a welcomed contrast. Down runs an avalanche in a hurry to rip across steep slopes – a mad rush; from where I stand a quiet parade. I hum Whitman’s words – „all goes onward and outward, nothing collapses“ – and carefully close the window to the world. My gaze is a slow trance, a waltz in time. Outside and inside meet on the face of my blinking shutters. The sun rushes waves through a multitude, gives rise to the avalanche and rests unsettled against my window blinds, begging for entry.

In my hearth I watch another display of heat. A sun basking in strict confines, human inflicted but unquestionably free in its own right. Fire. It punctuates the rhyme of life nurturing me far beyond my body’s call for warmth. It is a gentle touch to my soul, a loving percussion mimicking the care of a mother for her child, a hand-locked cradle in hushed sway. I fold forward and curl into myself to faintly brush the word peace into the ash collecting around my feet. My finger is slick with soot, grey and black remnants of the lick of fire. I spell each letter with slow, monotonous strokes, timeless in their enchantment.

All the while sky has turned to shades of yellow and orange and red, remarking the arrival of night. The dark moves sun’s reach off my window ledge, lets itself in, drapes my shoulders, provides rest and sidles with me to watch the last glints shiver before falling still. The five letter word has long slipped into me or out of me, there is no telling. I doze off before my mind wiggles thoughts into answers.

Poems swirl into my headspace and retrieve my sunken heart. I heed their notion, tapping my brow to drag seamless thoughts into open space, where they disperse silently.

On the back of trusted friends, I find solace as I collect fresh leaves from swollen branches. Like candy, sugar coated doves chase the sun. Bright rays tickle my face, wipe tears from my cheeks just below the rustle of branches.  Movement reverberates through the tree’s core transporting earth’s vibrations from roots to leaves to wide open space. I motion for my own heart to seek the roots of life.

The unclasping of my walls stirs the veins deep reach into the crowns of my fingers. If I were to grow leaves, my skin would lay out soil of lived experiences tugged underneath my chin. I tend to the sky. Growth inches forth as I penetrate the beyond.

My leaves brush your face. A face well known to me. Some speak of maps. I ponder on smiles patiently creasing skin around corners of mouths. One day I will miss your creases and the leaves. Life leads them into the wilderness thoughts cannot attend, men cannot touch, not even the tick of time. I surrender my own inner flow to slip into your wake, where I suppose leaves dance with leaves, coaxing love to reveal itself. Lo and behold, some earth holds us both, I trust.

Feeling into the past, a fragrance of my life, wicked and sweet, fleeting, yet unsettling in one beauty, one worldly encounter, one face of flower fully exposed. I transpire into depths uniting the past with the presence, I cannot tell apart. Whirl and wild leap around the sun, stradling the heat on each lofty stride like the unknown spirits we envisioned, drawing leafs upon naked branches in spring. Each stroke of living truth appears attached to an emotion – loaded moments – pinning my memories to a momentary being.

I stop in my tracks, cannot seize or control, though it is mine alone, it really isn’t. The rays blink my eyes awake. We laugh some, we cry some. None of my strides are lost. I’m counting more and more in the progression of my life. I lean against the haystack or shift my cheeks on the red bench. I sit by the water and stand under the tree, visit Mima, sip the comings of winter, reach the intense, near suffocating energy of spring, hold my own hand – so small – wear time around my beating heart and slow slowly, tilt my neck backwards and smile in the glow of sun and moon and universe.

Touch glides under my skin to caress the gentle stream flowing down the mountainside into the depths of my heart. My step too is touch, fond of the accumulated water, fond of moving on worn out soles in this very lifetime. Each toe takes to the whisp of winter grazing the manifold branches within me. A pulsating open and close like flaps pressed to my muted words, expanding their reach to the sun.

On the windowsill the angel looks on, dives deep, lays the strands of me across mountain face and lake, tilts my head towards the hold of the sun just as the duck’s beak shatters the surface. Ripples cover vast space.

Die letzte Leine, die mich wie eine Nabelschnur mit dem Hafen verbindet, löse ich. Wind und Strömung umgarnen mein Schiff, legen sich wie ein durchsichtiges Band um meine Seele und ziehen mich hinaus; immer fort. Das Ruder fest in meinem Griff, folge ich dem Ruf des Meeres und drehe den Bug in den Wind. Frei laufen nun die Leinen. Segel hissen, den Wind einfangen, Kurs setzen – die Freiheit steigt in mir auf. Kraftvoll dieser Akt, der mich durchdringt, zugleich sanft, die Seite dreht, mich erinnern lässt. Gekonnt, wie Grossvaters Finger die Mandarinen schälte, die einzelnen Stücke Geschichten erzählen liess. Genau hier auf der vernarbten Platte des Küchentisch rauschte das Meer heran, die Piratenflagge hochgezogen, die Schätze suchend: ein Abenteuer begann.

Als ich meinen Blick aufrichte, treffen wir uns lächelnd. Hier und jetzt. Ich hebe meinen Finger leicht an und kippe die Mandarine auf ihre Seite, schön die feinen Venen im verborgenen Inneren. Du hast sie mir gezeigt. Die Freiheit liegt vor mir, in mir. Ich schiebe Dir die Frucht entgegen, süss. Ja, süss, der zu sein der empfängt, wie Du mein Denken und Fühlen auf die Seite kippst und ich von neuem erwache. Tiefer dieses Erwachen als die Furchen der Weltmeere, die unter meinem Schiff vorbeiziehen, tiefer als jenes Blau, welches den Glanz des Wassers in meinen Augen zum Tanze bittet, mich rüttelt und schüttelt bis ich mich erhebe.

„Woher kommst du, mein lieber Pirat?“, flüstert die Nacht. Ich seufze tief – ein stiller, durchdringender Atem in die weite Welt hinaus. Wie die Sterne an mir vorbeziehen, sich das Meer vor mir öffnet, der Horizont in sich ruht, navigiert der Gesang meines Herzens die mich wiegenden Wellen, die aufsteigen und fallen. Ich unternehme nichts, lasse mich leiten, höre Deine Stimme wie ich mit meinem Schiff die Achse der Erde umrunde, immer wieder, und bin nie allein. Die Ausdehnung des Lebens zerrt mich in ferne Gefilde, weckt mich, ruft mich, reckt sich in mir, zieht mich jenseits des Tals und der Berge, zeichnet ein Stück von mir auf die Leinwand des Himmels, wo die Sterne wie Krieger und Fabelwesen meine Odysee inszenieren, meinen verborgenen Schatz nicht aus ihrem funkelnden Schein verlieren. Hier bin ich sichtbar.

In meiner schaukelnden Kabine, auf meinem alten Schreibtisch, lebt das Licht in einem geschlossenen Gefäss, durchdringt seine durchsichtigen Mauern und schnürt Schatten um meine müden Hände, zieht Öl durch den Docht und entfacht die Liebe in mir. Wie ich dem Schein des Lichts mich öffne, hast Du mir gelehrt mich der Liebe zu öffnen. Die Liebe, die sich sich durch mein Innerstes tastet und auch dieses selbst, dass ich in mir trage, füllt.

Nun lege ich mich auf der Sänfte eines in mir wachsenden Vertrauens nieder, welches mich aufhorchen lässt, sehen lässt, sodann die Wellen ruft, nach dem Winde giert, das Beben der Weltmeere bemächtigt mich in sich zu empfangen, zu tragen, zu halten. Ich werde auf dem Meer sterben und mich hingabevoll ergeben im Vertrauen so geliebt zu sein wie ich bin.

Das Licht grenzt den Schatten aus, spielt mit ihm, zeichnet einen Kreis auf meinen Tisch. Ich ziehe meinen Zeigfinger über seine Naht, hell, dunkel, hell, dunkel, tippe auf das Holz, fasse mein Herz und lass meinen Atem Dich finden, Dich berühren. Wo Du bist, weiss ich Heimat – verschmelzen Licht und Schatten, zerfliessen meine Gedanken und mit ihnen meine Zweifel, sammeln sich die Ausgüsse aller Flüsse und Seen in versteckten Rinnen, streicheln sanft meine Sinne, flechten eine Sonne aus meinem Herzen, die aus mir herausstrahlt, zärtlich Deine Wange küsst, sich zutiefst verneigt und lächelt – Danke.

Acting candles in the quiet of the room. I watch them still and dancing, much like the hurry and halt of my heart. Here rests this body and mind. I attend both with awareness. It truly is a flicker of attention, of time, easily overlooked.

Space walks me to the candles. A threshold I dare cross with love I cannot speak, nor hold, nor shape beyond my lips.  I trust the light to wake color in the dark, I trust the morning to wake my body, it has not missed a day. I follow light into dark, the candles gaze at me, shadows cast on my face…where lies the trust that beckons life into every moving cell in every moment?

I know it.

I slow it. Feel. The passing of the snow yields the meadows lush and green. I follow. A ray inside a candle’s glow, the warmth of my heart beating, a rush I lay myself into like light flowing rivers, not once stopping to look for purpose, no distress in forging through earth and rock, and only the sky above. No hurry bending time or needing, wanting, chasing. Just the onset of life, ripples on the path, kind and soft like skin and muscle holding trusted sleep with eyes shut. A babe in the light, in the dark, remains when the candles dissapear, remains when breath loses its composure, remains in the outflow of past and present – is, truly.

Almost there. Almost face to face. Almost a word spoken. Almost. Radiant longing, burning from the inside, painting dark shadows across open nerve endings, extending far into the universe. Lined by the last glimpse of a late day’s sunlight, rays bathe in the falling drops as the curtain closes. That face drops, the scented body twists through the mind, fever races up toes and circles fingers, grazes shoulders and painted skin, maps contours unique to one only – a once home held by another human. Attention sinks and rises to match eyelids at their open and their close to reveal colors beyond, begging the yearning to stop. Or the pain begs, tired now.

I understand – scant and hungry – a thirst to be. To see. To stand on a rock – firm – and translate every atom into the universal gaze, which meets my own as I stop. To be, to see, to stand still. The accumulation of my physical being prespiring, conspiring in beads of sweat, beads running like improbable men on transparent threads: an incessant flow, and whirl, and wind, disarranging me.

What life is this, lived on the back of time? Hijacked by minutes and hours, until I slow and fall apart – a fracture in time. The scent of a lemon teases nostrils, ants scramble underneath feet. I blinked too often and failed my watch. To see as I wake up out of my trance delivers fresh life.

Restless drop out of a conceptualized life. I mindfully place the heavy grocery bags on the ground. To stand on a rock – unstable and vulnerable – yielding life; I will take it. To stand, to see, to be. My legs tremble, so I sit. My eyes tire, I close my lids. My breath grows shallow, I surrender.

So time is time and passes in whatever course time passes. I slide my palm between the hands of mere seconds and pause to regard the world inside and out. There; in both you settle, and I caress your hair, graze your lips. Still hungry, still thirsty, but no longer shy to live. I govern the sole of my thumb to trace the edge of your nail, glide along the root of your finger, hold tight your hand. What skin is mine? I step out of one world and into another. I consider attention a servant as I experience the breadth of emotion.

You – yes, you – crossed my path, sank into my heart, left footprints, restored lost rhythms, tickled my flesh and coaxed love out of invisible cells. The sky’s intriguing dance embraces your laughter, painting its joy across the glow of the sun. Sunshine – you – rays of gratitude pour from me. I am content that we met in this lifetime. It may well have been different.

I keenly watched the plates spin and spin and with them my house of emotion. The winds swept up my porch and broke into my home. Windows burst and walls cracked. Down the stairs crept a stray, feasting on the obscure, searching the pipes for warmth, chasing after any notion of life. As the roof lifted off its moorings I sat and watched. As the shutters tore off their hinges I leaned forward and surveyed the flowers. Turbulent times had plucked leaves from their stems, had wrenched pain from my heart. Still – outside the steady walls of a hidden chamber the winds subsided, withdrew at the muffled cry of a babe, so delicate and fresh, unblemished and whole, upending all movement, pausing, resting. The plates for one instance halted their cryptic grind. And nothing happened.

Still – I stood and observed the frozen scene, a landscape of my innermost: A house shattering, the walls peeling off, revealing the hidden chamber, the unseen child. Here I paint the flowers delicately, they remind me of my grandmother. She whispers in my ear, consoles me, as I cradle the child. All ruptures and expels outwards, and yet this heart of hearts remains untouched, is not breached, cannot die.

Child, the universe sends for you, gives rise to you. Life inside your infant body thumps. I hear it through the concrete walls, through the cracks, up the stairs, soaring, then tenderly brushing against my heart, speaking softly, providing solace. Should all plates break I will continue my watch. The winds will pick up again, the same play repeating. I know it. I trust it, though I do not like it. Eventually the winds descend, crawl back into a quiet space, lay down their lashes like the wrappings of a shawl in which I drape your tiny frame for warmth and rest. Sleep, little one, you are safe.

On the cold ground I rest. I rest my breath from having spent inhaling life so deeply. My cells break open and in creeps the sun to fill me. The emptiness provides a space for the warmth I crave. My muscles chase a deep ache around the confines of my heart. I am rattled.

I am here now, there is no denying it – and watch the sky playout before me, an inaudible act, a quiet shift in time. I know it passes, so does the cold. Stacks of ice and my body splayed on top. What shelf parks my love, which beats within? I have lost track, not of the clouds passing over me. I grab one with my soul and cling to its vapor as if for direction. In turbulent times I park my limbs right here and stretch out of myself.

Fibers across the shell I house day in day out seep through the ice and wrap themselves around love, caressing the light, dim and shaken, but in its entirety never disturbed.

An unknown finger traces the spine of my back, moves across my neck and tickles my ear. I do not know it. I relax in its presence like a child in the arms of its mother. Breath returns to me. A beat stirs my heart. In cracks I feel water release from ice, though I cannot see, I know the sun shines. I slowly stand on my feet, then leap. The trust I lost pulls every raindrop back into the cloud reversing pain into love. I am still here.