Around the sun in 365 days
goes the world.
Not a faltering in her flight,
she orbits in the clutch of gravity.
How round we go, unaware
how seasons are ordained,
or perhaps more,
a fact of nature’s momentum.
Round we go,
and when I reflect back, I see
how I’ve spiraled
from life’s first breath
to now.
Sometimes spun
as a spinning top,
disoriented, uncomprehending.
Sometimes as a dancer,
pirouetting,
within the flow of graceful strength.
And sometimes
as a leaf suspended,
at the mercy of the untamed winds.
I do best then,
to hold things lightly
as the world is carried,
sustained by ancient laws
for perpetua,
for millennia.
I do best when I do not resist
the change of season,
the continuity of movement,
the finality of yesterday.
I do best to stay on board,
expectant,
seeing how in the flow
my central core remains unchanged.
Just like gravity,
our protector from dissolution,
and the enabler of our passage,
keeps us poised
and turning.
And so, at the core of things
I trust the Alpha
and Omega,
the cyclical beginnings and endings,
as a genus of seed ever replicating,
bursting, shedding,
spreading,
and above all,
continuing,
season by season.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
August 2022
Living Tree Poetry 