The Holding - A Poem About Our Interdependent Nature

The Holding I remember once in the damp woods,

Finding a flower so beautiful I pretended it had been made for my eyes alone.

In an attempt to take it home I pulled it,

But its roots were a stubborn logic.

I had to tug with a slow,

Holy patience,

Until the earth finally loosened.

Suddenly its tuber shot through the dark soil,

Still attached to something else.

So I followed its slender frond,

The delicate taproot slipping through my palm,

Like a living fuse.

It was wound around the bloodwood,

Then enveloped the granite stone.

It was embedded inside the mountain's spine,

And then dove down with the turn.

It bubbled inside the river's open throat,

And then slid into the unseen body of water moving beneath my feet.

And there,

At the very end of that line,

That root,

That simple,

Sullied thing,

Was my own hand,

Mud streaked,

Shaking slightly.

The whole world seemed to unspool at my boots while I stood there,

Stunned still holding the small flower.

You cannot lift a single thing in this world without lifting the rest of it.

We give it a name,

Something small enough to manage,

And call it separate.

But nothing here stands alone.

Once you stop trying to name it,

What remains is simply the holding.