WHEN SKIES ARE FALLING

Leafy debris, tree limbs, widow-makers. The sky is falling!

Stately red oaks, blood orange maples and whispy white pines

all contort and cavort in the wild of this windy day.

Fleecy clouds galavant across the Cerulean blue skies

like magnificent wild stallions stampeding on the open range.

Gusts wielding woe with invisible force are down-drafting,

slamming this lake's waters with blow after blow after blow.

Their thrusts are twisting, torquing its shimmery surface,

creating eerie shapeshifters that scuttle wickedly away.

But just inches beneath this silvery skin of liquid,

these immutable waters are as calm and peaceful

as the wheat fields I remember swaying softly in the

afternoon breeze of my grandfather’s Minnesota farm.

In tumultuous times like these, when my insides

feel like the skies above my heart are falling

and treacherous winds of every kind

consort to undo my tenuous sense of wellbeing,

my soul reminds me of my true nature:

I am the bold, bendable, and beautiful trees,

I am the deep, still and serene waters,

I am the gently swaying fields of gold.

This world may wreak havoc upon my spirit,

but in ways I can neither comprehend nor imagine,

I know that I am whole and that all will be well.

To this I cling. For this I sing. To you I bring.

Today.