We Couldn’t Tell
(written for friends in retreat by Grant Rix)
We couldn’t tell,
Where we were,
Motion sick from a life,
Which just kept spinning.
We couldn’t see the fine gap,
Which marked the point,
Where the circle returns.
But we slowed ourselves,
We insisted on silence,
With the help of pine trees, cicada, mossy rocks, bellbird and bumble bee,
And the unnameable,
Sparking, sparkling, insisting,
From through the gap.
Return, return, return,
Bring me your frustrations, your confusions, your desires,
And your long held pains.
Bring me your kind, gentle, strong and broken hearts.
I will hold them all,
I will always remain,
Here when you see me,
Here when you don’t,
Here when you remember,
Here when you forget.
Here, always.
And we heard your call,
When?
We do not know,
It does not matter.
Your quiet persistence,
Your never giving up on us,
Your timeless invitation,
To fall,
With tears softening long-held tensions,
And silent giggles of remembered innocence.
To the centre,
We fell.
To the centre of the circle,
Which keeps circling.
We found our peace in the stillness,
At the centre,
We found our peace growing,
With every embrace of the circling,
The centre grew so wide,
It revealed the space,
In which the circle turns.
Or perhaps,
It was you,
Who found us,
In that place,
Where stillness and movement,
Make their home together.