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There is certainly a monastic streak in me.
I’ve always been a bit of a hermit.
I like to go out into the world
and collect the sea shells strewn about the beach;
I like to hear the stories the old men tell
and the songs the lovely ladies sing,
but I always come home,
like oxygen,
like breath,
to care for little worlds
and observe them as they spin –
like I spin –
we, the weaver’s workers
in ceaseless centrifugal force.

 

Plant and food,
flora and fabric,
sweet scents of cinnamon baking and sweat from the brow,
a wet bang slapped to the side with a huff –
the flour erupts in a puff –
as I keep kneading away.

 

A little more tired than well-rested would be
and a little more task that needs doing,
but the sun keeps her schedule
and the moon keeps her call
and there’s music at night
to remember you by.

 

This is the vital importance of brainless task:

It is in the process of ordinary, daily chore that my intellect is freed to wander far enough away, that I might ponder great questions, figure strange puzzles, and laugh at mean ironies.

Profound thought percolates under the business of fingers.
Imagination unlocks at tinkering, trained muscles, traversing in memorized beats.
I am stirred by the monotonous movement of the mundane.

The simplicity of duty can be the most liberating thing when I do not marry the mind to task, but engage it, rather, to eternity.

 

And then,
at last,
I am home.

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#foldinglaundryisfertilesoil