Porch Sitting

​Sometimes, our beings
need
to sit on the porch and
not allow the mind to argue about
the chill or dampness.
We need not make
excuses that
someone will see our
bed-head hair
or judge us
for wasting time
when there are other
things more important to do.
 
Sometimes, our beings
require
porch sitting
as much as we require
food and oxygen.
Sometimes,
the only way to come fully
alive
is to feel the forty degree
temperature on our skin
that coaxes us to run
back inside only long
enough to grab hat and scarf.
 
Sometimes, we must
hear, straight from the tree,
without barrier of window or wall,
the happiness in the
robin and wren songs.
 
Sometimes, we must step down
from the porch just long enough
to finger the dark soil that
blankets new growth.
With dirt under our nails,
we can better give thanks that earth
is our home no matter where we roam.
 
And as we breathe in the morning air,
as we rest in what is fully present
in us and around us,
we uncover the pureness of
what naturally heals.
 
And this is important as we live complex lives.
Like the seasons that hold both barren and full times,
our lives are ‘yes and’ lives.
Yes, we carry burdens and we can be released from them.
Yes, we are tired and rest will find us.
Yes, the world is falling apart and it is mending.
Yes, there is devastation and there is beauty.
Yes, our hearts break and they continue to love and be loved.
 
Sometimes, porch sitting
invites the complexity to grow quiet enough
that we find our way out of the fog
and hear the wind chimes soothing us
into the possibilities
of a new day.