The poet Rumi advises us to find a place
high in a nearby tree to hide our spirit.
It is so easily bruised and, when damaged,
we cannot hear what it has to teach.
I read this and had a question–
why did I wait so long to do the work
my fingers should always have been doing?
(There is considerable guilt around this question,
and a few regrets, if I let them fester).
I just didn’t know how to protect my spirit yet,
to shelter it in that old Hemlock tree there,
dark, unmoving, quiet,
but happy to give my spirit sanctuary,
as though it grew all those years for
no other purpose.
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