Poem: Opening Up By Charlene Langfur

Opening Up

By Charlene Langfur
QuailBellMagazine.com

​No protection here. It’s clear. But there is more -
Wanting makes it so. I try to transform the mind
with small prayers. Short ones, a few words

of thanks. This actually works over time.
I plant a garden in back of the house,
sit with it at night like an old friend,
blessing what is, purple lavender flowers,
the zucchini seeds planted at dawn. And I remember
the names of what has been lost and hope each travels light,
all of them and more. And in time, spirit, I am enveloped
by it because once you are touched, there is
no going back. Opening up changes us,
with so much care with nothing taken back in it.
At first I am thinking about the war in the Middle East again,
how it goes on year after year, growing and
shrinking, and I’m tracking dangerous ideas,
thinking about them one by one, 
as if holding an egg in the palm of my hand,
balancing it until it is time to put it down.
The rest of the deep rooting starts easy,
Starts off with life’s basic matters,
carrying water, to-do lists on a page from a small pad of white paper,
notes for tomorrow, and in the end, delicate violets,
the snow white pea flowers come with them,
and the corn breaking out of the dirt,
bold, wild, new, heading for the sky.