THE LAKE (expanded)

Safety is a lake

we bring our canoes to.

You and I and the others

will meet at the bank.

We’ll wade into the water,

walk our boats 

out and away 

from the shoreline,

push off, hop in

and in time 

slowly lay 

our soft bodies down

into the ribbed embrace 

of our storied vessels.

We are not oarless

in an open ocean. 

We are held

in a lake. 

This lake: intimate, 

still, contained. 

On our backs, we give 

ourselves over 

to the vaulting sky

as the day dims,

darkens, deepens,

as the stars come out

to play. We are drawn 

into the wash 

of the Milky Way.

Lost inside its silky veil,

we imagine ourselves

constellating back 

into a singularity 

that was once our source. 

The glimmering infinities above,

seen with our astronaut eyes,

are also, we know, below,

beneath us, they buoy us up

in the mirroring waters 

we glide through. 

The cosmos, Creation itself, 

is all around.

Separately and yet together,

we drift in this lake,

in this rippling circle of safety,

held in the Here and Now.

Cocooned in self-compassion, 

and community, 

we vessel deeper 

into the medicine

and healing waters 

of belonging.