I thank my friend De Herman for sharing the following lovely piece that she wrote.–April Moore

Talia

 

Rain!

It rained steadily all day yesterday 

The creek is moving again

Leaves on bushes look refreshed

People greet each other pleasantly

No one snaps at Marcel, the eco-friendly dry cleaner

The air, so much cooler, begs me to don a jacket

And go for a walk beside the creek

I haven’t walked here since Monday

I’ve missed my dear friend Talia

Today she greets me heartily

Her quiet beauty beckons me to look up

Her rough skin sparkles with moisture

Her expressive arms reach out

Her leafy hair rustles in the breeze

Her shapely trunk shows off her sinuous curves

Talia, I say, you’d never make it as a telephone pole

And for that I’m grateful

But you look healthy and alive

As if you’d just stepped out of the shower

What do you want to tell me today?

I finger her bark, press my ear to her trunk and listen 

This she shares with me:

 

Keep tending the creek and the path.  It will make for a more soothing place to walk, to meditate, to contemplate.  Meditation and contemplation will yield up sweet fruits for the world.  Notice what things you pick up and place in your bag.  Mostly, they are containers for things you put in your mouths—things you drink, things you chew, things you smoke.  While you and your fellow humans constantly attend to your oral fixes, my friends and I must bear the burden of your thoughtless ways.   Believe me, it’s a high price to pay, especially when we go through such a long dry spell.

 

Talia continues.  Think of this:  while you and your kind yearn for love, you mistakenly substitute acquiring things for loving, when you lash out at one another over inconsequential matters, you miss the point about living.  Believe me, I know the hurt is so great it feels unbearable.  The only way you try to relieve it quickly is to pack more walls of defensive acquisitions around you.  The risk of allowing cracks to break open the walls of your fortress is too scary.  But here I am, standing naked before you, with all my warts, and I can only speak my truth. 

 

I breathe so you can breathe.  Your breath gives me breath.  I grow my green leafy canopy to make my food and to provide respite from the glaring sun for you and other creatures.  But I’m not invincible, nor are my friends.  You see, many of them didn’t get as good a start as I did.  Like an amputee, they’ve lost limbs; like a desert traveler, they’ve faltered for need of a long cool drink.  Yet, against the odds, they’re still trying to do their sacred work day after day.

 

Talia concludes.  It is possible to create a peaceful co-existence between us.  We can even cultivate a mutually satisfying life, attending to the sensory requirements we all share, as well as those that are idiosyncratic.  But you and your kind, lulled into a drunken sleep a long time ago, must arise, clear your head from the hangover, and open your eyes wide.  See, question, learn, and do what needs to be done to correct the wayward course you’ve been on.  Only then will the rain come in its season.  The creek, recharged, will quench our collective thirst and wash the rocky banks on its way to the bay.  And the growing things, like me, will flourish, shed our seed, and replenish ourselves for all time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 8:10 am and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.