To the Beat of the Hum

I sat down in a hollow by a tree
and leaned back
spine to trunk
and breathed.

I closed my eyes
to feel the breeze
and hear the birdsong
calling to the wildflowers.

The rhythm of my breath aligning
with the chirping of the barn swallows
in their long conversations
the shimmering of the leaves
as the breeze stirs then dancing

The beating of my heart
comes out of syncopation
finding its rhythm
as if from a long, long time ago

Could it be
all the stories stitched together,
the conclusions of what happened
the deductions all along
were not as unbiased as believed?

Could it be that
all that I-beam and chicken wire
of extrapolation of events
of viewpoints of a 9 year old
under the paper mache of
clothes and history
can all fall off me now…

I Ask without expectation
as I breath in as-yet-unimagined
Possibilities
and exhale my known identity
exhale my known world.

What if there is more kindness in living
than anyone I know
has ever yet imagined?

What if life itself is allowance
and it revolves around belovedness being
the likes of which I’ve only
Sometimes
read about in Hafiz or Hildegard*
or Mary Oliver
without all the god indoctrination

Because the spirit of their words are
Omniscient
Visceral as
Breath itself.

When I open my eyes
my breathing doesn’t revert
my body stays in the rhythms
of sounds and symphony
of the swallows and starlings chirping
and surfing the sky with the
clouds and leaves in the breezes,
the grasses moving along
to the beat of the hum
and the spin of the Earth

And ladybugs
all over me.

Happy Spring
Delia Yeager
March 21, 2023

*Hildegard of Bingen