I listened to an interview with Arjuna Ardagh on New Dimensions Radio about his new book, "Awakening Into Oneness: The Power of Blessing in the Evolution of Consciousness". He said to be touched by grace, we must relax frantic doing and acquiring, take our hands off the wheel. He believes and I do that we live in a field of grace.

Reading, writing, and speaking poetry often brings me into an awareness of grace.

You Can’t Have Everything

but you can have a tongued velvet kiss beneath tall cedars and oaks flushed with new leaves. You can have a graze of caress up your thigh, the soft brush of summer on honeyed skin. You can have muscles sleek with love and bliss in the buttery sun of morning. You can have birds singing in tree canopies, squirrels that leap, vibrant lobelia and petunias. You can have the smell of lavender and lemon thyme crushed between your fingers.

You can have a window seat with pillows and books of poetry. There are always your dreams of the writer’s studio that overlooks the ocean and delicious words to fill cracks chiseled by disappointment. You can’t clean the house with a twitch of your nose and will it to stay pristine, but you can have pineapple chunks of sunshine through your windows, bowls of rosy peaches, nectarines, ripe tomatoes. You can have a doe and two spotted fawns, a fox and her mate, blue jays, hummingbirds and coveys of quail.

You can’t make parents live forever, though for now, you can have the touch of love in your mother’s voice, the stories of your father’s triumphs that improve each year. You can’t force your sister to stop using meth, but you can send her love through her sieved holes of darkness. You can’t rescue loved ones from their unhappiness, but you can wipe away their tears and remind them to drink in the fragrant beauty of earth and sky.

You can’t stop the effects of aging, but you can view heart-soaring mauves and blues of Eastern Sierras that sweep from desert expanse, camp beneath Mammoth pines. You can thrill with an intake of breath at the sight of a massive bear. The mind’s song may wind notes of want, yet you can sing gratitude for moments full of grace.

©2004 Star Kissed Shadows, Divining Poetry, (book)
and Sweet Tongue, Assorted Poetry and Music (CD), 2007 by Sher Lianne Christian