
the world is as it is
because
we followed the rules,
did as we were trained
used ‘best practices’
rather than love
or our higher brains
what if
(at first for just a half an hour a day,
until our long-domesticated hopes
recall the taste of it)
we tell each other,
tell our disbelieving selves
that in the quickening of that slower time
our highest aspirations
are the rules
our longings are the compass
and the map,
the light that knows
and shows the next small step,
the whispering seed
that knows it is a tree
and we are free
to hear each still-small voice
— September 4, 2017 / April 29, 2022