Meditation #10

Ceramic lamp on the walnut table —

clay never intended
to become a bearer of light,

but it did.  The tree
never intended to lend its strength
to the clay, but it does.

Once upon a time, the tree’s roots
threaded through a vein of clay
as they silently created its hold on the earth.
The clay had no reaction to that,
lying there underneath it all.

It was our violations of their different ways of being
that brought them together here,
their roles reversed now, making themselves useful
just for me.  I am quiet before them,
respectful of the changes they’ve been through
to end up here. 

What will I become next? 

I think about that,
nursing pain, imagining a path
not of my choosing, one that may take me
into service to something unimaginable now.