Pause (a new poem)

Practicing mindfulness has taught me that taking time to pause–in a moment, with a decision, for a life transition–draws out wisdom that remains unavailable when I scurry around with self-declared important busywork. I started working on this poem–or it started working on me–when on a silent meditation retreat, itself a valuable window of observation.

Pause

Rest a while at the river’s edge
   and you might receive
   a fleeting glimpse
      of leaping salmon,
   silver shuttles threading home
   to seal an ancient journey.

Wait a midnight moment
   at the driveway’s end
and look up— there—
a milky swath of stars
   might remind you
      of a lineage long forgotten.

Stand still long enough
at the forest’s edge
and even the
      Great Stag
may present himself,
      antlers vaulting upward,
      oaken haunches pressing down to
      root and earth.

In that instant,
his chest
   will heave
      in sympathetic astonishment,
sculpted muscles proud
   with wild promise,
nostril vapor fading into the
   haunting quiet of dawn.
 
His dark eyes
   will lock with yours,
      pausing
in recognition.

Surely, and as breathtakingly as he arrived,
the stag must turn and
leap back
into the shadows
   that shared him with you,

but his simple presence
   will have shattered
   the dullness of your
         knowing

leaving only
   the resonant wisdom
of this next breath
   in your tender body.

--Ted DesMaisons

“Red Deer Stag” by Richard Fisher. Used via Creative Commons License. (www.flickr.com/photos/richardfisher/8331816773)