Empty and Armed.
Early in the morning and you walk in the sand.
Near the shore it undulates, God’s art,
renewed each morning at the whim of weather and tides.
You walk in the sand. Your foot prints leave divots.
Water seeps in. Tiny ***** scurry, almost invisible.
If you look carefully, you can see their tracks
before they disappear into their tiny burrows.
You walk. The waves whisper. It is a quiet morning.
No one else is on the beach.
Just you, your God and your demons.
The demons disperse like dandelion seeds,
unable to hold on in the vast emptiness.
They become as lost as you once were.
lost in the horizon, their claws rendered useless
as you ignore them.
You become lost too. Lost in the wash of the waves.
In the long stretches of sand, in the place you walk
beyond foodprints.
It is worth the walk. Worth the ache in your aging legs.
to empty yourself. To find yourself.
To find what is left when you let everything else go
and join the demons on the wind.
It is worth the walk.
And too, worth the walk back.
For that is part of it.
You cannot live here forever.
You were not made to be a monk in the desert,
only a pilgrim.
There is a world that needs your meger talents,
and you come back to it
both empty
and armed.
I have just come back from a few days at Cape Cod. The effects have not yet worn off, and that is a good thing.
