For Just a Moment

 

I returned to the Pacific Northwest for a brief moment earlier this month. Driving on roads covered in a blanket of leaves, windshield wipers batting the rain off the glass, pre-mature Christmas music playing louder than my thoughts, I pulled to the side of the road wanting time to stand still. Keenly aware that Life is so much bigger than my wanting; I grabbed my journal and pen and wrote about my desire for time to stand still for a moment. Craving the temporary to change places with the Eternal, knowing that it can’t and won’t. Desperately wanting for the people I love to remain beloved, and forms to not shift. I knew this could not and will not happen, and yet, I was aware of the deep desire within me to own the beautiful familiar … for even just a moment.

 This Moment

Life is now faster than me.

I want to possess the land
I know will outlive me.

Today
it’s not enough to stand witness to its beauty and appreciate it.

I want to gather it up and hold
desperate,
as a two-year old yelling “mine, get away.”
To own.
To protect.
To fight.
To scream.
To gather.
To grasp.

Dropping a tree here,
Picking up a river, there.
Begging the rain to puddle in my palm and stop the naturally yielding to the next temporary, yet apparent, sturdy expression of Life.

“Stop.”
I want to yell to the trees.
Pick up your leaves and wear them just a bit longer.
Replace the yellow and red coat with summer green.
Halt the grass from standing taller.
Retard the multiplication of mushrooms.

Just for today.
Just for now.

Let me own, possess, ingest, this moment.

Bonnie Barnard, November 3, 2014

The Eastern religions speak of walking with death, or the awareness of the temporary nature of forms, as supportive in the awakening process. I have found this to be true for me.

Namaste’