The crispy shells of the rice stalks
stir up
in the breeze,
murmuring as I pass by.
These tall brown ancestors of last year’s crop
stand by to guide the green shoots rising up –
I listen to the rustling
of a whole tribe –
I am back and they remember me.
I am spending so much time alone
I am learning to hear
way down
for the way
that I am one
yet integral –
all alone, so far away,
yet never by myself,
except when I turn on
the radio of my thoughts
and forget even where I am.
The only togetherness
I long for is this oneness
and I wish to only be
near another
who is listening in this way
to the wind, the pattern in the crickets
as they turn on one by one at dusk.
It is enough to know the gift of aloneness;
it is enough to measure my days
in ways
that suit the sun
the wind
the needs
of no one –
so quietly
strutting
along
in the whole wide world
of me.
Life as Improv 
Sometimes even the whole wide world of me feels overcrowded. I envy the calm community of your oneness; I’m still trying to figure out how to get the community within me to get along. I know that until I do, my getting along with anyone else will be difficult. How have you managed to arrange that armistice?
armistice! – I like the words that the community/armies of Michael come up with 🙂 ! After all the soldiers have slept in their trenches, and the new day is dawning, little cracks appear in the armor, and all troops meet for coffee on yesterday’s battlefield for coffee made over a stick fire and they share the images from their shadowy dreams and swap pictures of the girl back home. Sorry, got carried away by your word. I think there are some clues for me from the light shining through the cracks in the armor…perhaps.
I like the directions in which you flow when you get carried away. In my retelling of your story, rather than soldiers there would be those truly dangerous people who send them forth: intellectuals and attorneys and professors and theologians, male and female (all of whom people my head at one time or another) at last making their peace over tea in the gardens of a wide park by big water (river, lake, ocean). And now you’ve got me getting carried away as well.
This is beautiful Marga and I fell such a resonance with your words. Would you be open to me sharing them on my blog ‘waking up in byron’ (www.wakingupinbyron.wordpress.com) with a link to your blog? Mx
I love waking up in byron. So immediate, clear, accessible, just so. lovely to wake to your kind words, Melinda. of course and thank you for wanting to share 🙂 xo! m
Thank you Marga…. lovely to share the journey of no destination. Much love Mx
I love this listening seeing feeling holding moment you describe here, Marga. When our being becomes the translucence through which all of life is joined. When last year’s husks assert the inevitability of life’s gathering assertions. I think there are many standing with you there, in the fields of time, to listen through your ears to the rustle of the wind, to be reminded of the subtle glories able to incarnate within a single afternoon…
Your words mingle effortlessly with the wind, and the rustling stalks, before they vanish…
Michael
So grateful am I to be well and able and free to observe the “subtle glories” of many single afternoons – with so many…before all vanishes. Listening to a program about Vikings yesterday has carried over into my today such a feeling of impermanence. So much gone with barely any traces – how mysterious these segments of living! m
Reblogged this on waking up in Byron and commented:
I’ve recently come across this blog ‘life as improv’ and am delighting in the intimate clarity of sharing from its author, Marga. This post hit a note with me and thankfullly Marga has granted me the opportunity to share it with you. Enjoy. Mx
Reblog from: http://www.lifeasimprove.com