I sit in a café in the early hours.
I have no agenda, no manifesto, no religion that needs defending.
The morning sky is tangerine and tousled by clouds.
People are friendly.
No one has come here with that quote by Sartre.
No one is reading the principles of Sun Tzu.
Little Wing is playing through the overhead speakers.
Hints of frost on the large eastern window.
I’m warm in my Merino.
It’s February on the island. Snowdrops are up.
At a table beside me there’s a woman who is beautiful and plain.
I see the eyes of my mother — then I hear the voice of my father.
The woman glances up over her coffee, toward her partner,
a dark strand of hair, like a rush of love, falls across her cheek.
My memories are strands of wool, dropped and scattered over the earth.
I sit. Voices around me, like blessed water running over polished rock.
At a table near the back, I hear the glad cries of my sisters and brothers.
They are playing Rook, past midnight.
They are in me like piers in a port.
A trans woman enters who has the face of the Black Madonna.
Behind her, a mother, with a daughter whose midriff is exposed
and pierced with a jewel.
An old man in a wheelchair is sitting alone, with news.
A waiter is clearing and wiping a table and speaking softly
to a child, using the language of a child.
The nation’s flag is sewn on the brown jacket of a young man,
waiting for his Americano.
A business person, wearing straight lines and severe lipstick,
is waiting for some form of kindness.
An angel stands outside with his shopping cart and paper cup.
All of us here, like salt in a sea.
One in all, like coral; all in one, like the bride of Christ.
Before there were fists, there were open palms.
Even a gun was once an oak, and ore, gleaming from a cliff.
Tears of happiness well up in me,
the way brooks form on mountains after a day of rain,
the way a drop of love gathers more love.
Afterward, my eyes dry, I sit before my table.
It is built low and circular, like a bay prepared for boats
in some divine unfolding dream.
This reflection reminded me of Thomas Merton’s moment of enlightenment on the street corner in Louisville, MO. He describes it in his book, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander: http://merton.org/TMSQ.aspx
Thanks for the reminder, Stephen, of how the mundane and usual is so much more than we realize.
Thank you, Sheldon. I’ve always loved that Merton event.
wonderful words Steve , I can picture vividly everything you say ….
Thank you, Phil!
How beautiful that you are open to seeing with the eyes and heart you see with, Stephen. And how lovely that you don’t have to carry the baggage of disapproving but can grant all these folks, and others, the gift of celebrating them as they are.
Thank you so much for this, Ann. But you should know, as to that “baggage.” I too often, pick it back up.
Well, Stephen, picking it back up gives you all those opportunities to practice laying it down again , doesn’t it? 🙂
A beautiful morning meditation, of diversity and oneness .
“All of us here, like salt in a sea”
Lovely
Thank you so much, Ananda!
True enough Ann. 🙂
I loved the line – no religion to defend. The only apologetic Jesus gave is that we love one another, that here’s how people will know…. Open palms to the neighbourhood!
Thank you, Sam!
‘ the way a drop of love gathers more love ‘
the one gathering I am more than happy
to
attend <3
Thank you Stephen, for these scenes of humanity,
and the lenses for which you view. -^-
Thank you for your kind words, Tamara.