Come Rock With Me, by Kathryn Magendie

We are sitting together on my porch, you and I. A fat wind pushes against us, our hair tickles across our brows. We appreciate. Sun is out, and Old Moon is waiting. The bright birth of day easily changes to the deep illumination of the night. For Moon shines mystery even at daylight. We rock, pushing off with our right foot. To the left, a cardinal eats from the feeder. To the right, the little red squirrel chatters. We talk about our dreams, those of sleep, and those of our lives. We talk of regret, and old loves and old lives and wants and we talk of loves lost and lost loves. The air is easy between us, our hearts beat, and it is the rhythm of life.

Close your eyes, still your mind, take in a deep breath, and be. You can hear my breath sounds. We are connected by the earth. Listen to the creek sing. Feel the burst of wind. Smell the rich earth, the dark soil. To the ground we will return; we will feed and then be fed upon, symbiotic nourishing. Open your eyes. You can see my brown eyes deep and dark and as mysterious as the moon. I ask, Are you happy? Are you well? You say, Better than those, I am grateful.

The tree's boned branches sway. And there, beyond, mountain, forest, sky. The rock ancient and solid waits for our feet to stand upon it, where the ancestors stood, see what they saw, feel the wind they felt, enjoy the warmth of the sun as they did, cry and love and laugh waiting for Old Moon, just as they did. We rock; you and I, and we forget the things that once made us cry. We rock, and we forget the trails upon trails upon roads upon roads that we have walked with our head down, looking at our feet. Today, we look up. Today we see all. And every tear that we've ever shed runs into an ocean, and that ocean ebbs and flows and it is beautiful, for our pain has its own beauty, even if we can't always see this. We rock; there is nothing to take away and nothing else to give; there is nothing else but us and the wind and the mountains and the coming Old Moon.