Living Tree Poetry

There’s a stone in your shoe
that you feel your toes curl round,
sharp and smooth.
It digs and rubs, moves
that sometimes it disturbs, disappears.

There’s a stone in your shoe,
that the vista is a scene with flaws,
each sunset seen through cloud.
And sunrise, a quick glimpse
through breaks in mist.

There are stones in our shoes
that in a breath awareness shifts
from the wonders all around
to the pinch in skin.
Our steps now a limp, beauty exiting left.

So that our feet become the focus
of our full attention,
the shoe removed to the relief of flesh.
The stone a gem, not to discard
but pocket, keep at the breast.

There’s a thorn in our side,
it makes itself known in every turn on the way,
each step and rotate of the hip.
That we start to register its feel,
its grounding us to the path.

Yes, there’s a stone in our pocket,
a weight we’re equipped to carry.
That at night it’s a jewel
with such hidden depths,
that we sit and turn it round,

see ourselves inside.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
July 2020