in the end there will be only one essential story
--Ire’ne lara Silva
It was a burning—the rind, the straw burnt away.
I hoed the garden, sweat down my eyes,
and held on as cramps came,
in my legs, in my faith.
It was holding too long to the false,
the delusion of a perfect life, a perfect self.
They burned anyway, a house
that fell to ash and stone.
It was failing and failing.
So much I tried to keep to—
success and plan and doing right—
smolders now gray to the wind.
It was holding on and holding on, persisting,
long days on the cushion as I sat in the heat
and pain bent me and the mind roused—
but wasn’t that practice too a mechanism of self?
Even so, muscle and bone are strong.
They keep on walking, though I do not know the road.
I cannot do what I was called to do.
Yet it may still be done.
It is love walking with me,
brushing through grass.
Stems rise, wrong-headed and kindly,
love looking again and forgiving.
It is meals served and floors swept,
tears dried and tomatoes watered.
It is the truth spoken, sideways and straight.
It is asking and forgetting to ask.
It is an opening here in the heart
and something comes through.
Over and over that door opens.
It is greeting what comes.
—Sarah Webb
