what if | a poem

what

if we greeted one another,

greeted all the Life within us

and around us and beneath us

with a simple 'hello, stardust'?

what if we allowed ourselves to

be reminded of that truth?

what

if we ceased to make ourselves as

well as others smaller than we

are, releasing all the ener-

gy required to constrict, re-

quired to conceal our size?

what

if we trusted—only for a

moment, just a little, just e-

nough to step out of the suits we're

so used to squeeze our cells into?

Who Are We beyond confinement?

Who Are We when listened to, when

looked at with compassion? Who Are

We Really under these masks, be-

hind these roles, this impossible

pressure we cannot remember

to have ever lived without?

                                                 and 

Who Are We when listening, when

looking with compassion? Who Are

We when we are Being With? when

making time for one another,

Presence-ing with patience?

what if

we could let the voices coming

out of our mouths be our voices?

what words, what songs and what stories

would be born? what would we be a-

ble to let out, to let flow? what

would we know? who

might be known?

what

if the spaces that we move and

breathe in were spaces that welcomed,

that invited all of us; that

were spacious enough to hold what-

ever is alive in us?

what

if the worlds that we are building

with each other, in ourselves, were

worlds of wondering, of warmth, of

curious and deep connecting?

what if all we need to do and

need to be is here already?

what if it is nothing but a

dropping of the armor that we

may have needed to survive but

that made sure we would not thrive?

Who Are We when

we are blooming?

Who Are We when

we are rained up-

on again?

... what if we choose to

breathe a breath and, slowly, dig a

tunnel through the tension to our

hearts to get to know them, and then

get to meet and know each other

from that soft, that sacred place?