Going Deep

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars”. THOREAU, Walden, quoted by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are

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I miss the bigness

of home skies

mountains high

vast

and infinite

nestled here in the city

where house follows house

and nature is more than subjugated

I cannot even see the stars

too many lights

from too many malls

yet in every place

the eternal beckons

and beyond the shallows

there are deep pools

everywhere

into which we step

sometimes unknowing

we plunge into the depths

when we hear the cryptic wisdom of a

one and half year old boy

and as we watch a 4 year old dance

we catch a glimpse of eternity in the eyes of a homeless man

and share fear with a person just diagnosed with cancer

when we hear of another, not all that much older than we

who has died

and touch

gently or coarsely

our own mortality

life is not for the faint of heart

and we cannot merely

dip our toes

into the stream

we must plunge

going deep into

everything

in order to touch all within us

that is eternal

that is now

and find that there

is

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