ENTENDRE
ENTENDRE
Only in leaving do we arrive:
Plumes of ash-black birds
Dip and dive swirl in aerial ballet
Searching for a newer summer;
Children upend each rock,
Revealing concealed worlds:
Old questions find answers
When microbes and flowers
Look back as from God’s eye.
Salmon finish where they began,
Their dancing done and exhausted:
A final act rewinds their ancient play.
In the leaving we arrive,
Set free what’s past when it is
And turn full into new and biting winds.
This celebrates both kinds of tears– that sad joy
A mother accepts (her newborn
Will someday age and someday die),
And the fervent hoping this day trip
Through the best and the worst,
Unrolling like a carpet flung,
Might reveal patterns and magic and music:
The stuff of this world and all the others,
That only in their leaving will arrive.
We gain awareness of what life is when we let go of memories at last. We become ourselves then, not a construct of experiences.
