LOVE'S BRILLIANT RETURN
And the night belongs to us, and the dawn too, and we shall never again forget this grace we have been given, never again abandon this day in pursuit of another. Love is not something you find, it is like an energy, flowing, sometimes soft, barely perceptible, pulsating, sometimes surging, volcanic, spilling out everywhere, filling the cracks in the sidewalk, the walls we erected to keep us apart, bubbling like a brook, finding its way into every space, unstoppable, unstoppable, searching for its source, looking for its home, flowing through trees, lakes, people, flowing into the open skies, past galaxies, backwards and forwards through time. A baby is born, a man takes his last breath in a hospital somewhere, who knows where, an army rises, is defeated, rises, a slave breaks his chains, great beasts walk the earth, not knowing how close they have come to the fires. Stars are born and explode, your first birthday, your graduation, the death of your mother, your father, weeping into handkerchiefs, challenges you felt you would never overcome, and you overcame, and somewhere in the middle of the night, out across some vast ocean, somewhere in the dark recesses of your heart, or perhaps near the limits of the known universe, I don't know, she remembers, she turns back, remembering the source, yes, she remembers the source now, and she turns back, not seeking but falling, not pushing but allowing herself to be pulled, and she falls back, through the light and the darkness, through the sewage of a million lost worlds, through mystery, through layers of bliss and pain, into you, into your ancient heart, into her home. She has travelled to the ends of worlds, beyond time and space, through indescribable horrors and ecstasies, and she has found you again, where she left you, where the search began.
You take a breath now, you feel the heart beating, you feel your belly rise and fall, and this is not just some ordinary movement, some moment in a series of moments, this is eternity moving, breathing, infinite in nature, finite in form yet infinite in heart, and it was always you, it was always you, sought and found, lost and discovered.
It is just an ordinary day in your life, kids to feed, bills to pay, feelings to feel, but now you know, now you cannot forget, despite the dream, despite the journey, the dawn belongs to you, and the night too, and every call of every creature, and every pair of eyes, all yourself looking, wondering, thinking of home, and you shall never again forget this grace you have been given, never again abandon this day in pursuit of another, never seek love outside your own pumping heart, never doubt what you intuitively knew when mother ejected you into this world, kicking and screaming, broken and bloody but brilliantly yourself, that you are not a mistake, you are not a damn mistake, you are nature, you are whole, and worthy, worthy of the kind of love that travels aeons and light years and pulls itself through the shadows and the shit to return. From you she birthed herself, to you she comes running.
Home, mother, home!
- Jeff Foster (from The Way of Rest)
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