Change

Today is good,
But when you look closely
You will see the flaw.
It is gravely absent from your life,
And as you open to it,
You will notice where it strikes you,
At the heart.

Open to it, my friend.
Open to the flaw,
See it change,
Acknowledge it, and be whole,
For only in change
May life come anew.
Only in change will we meet again,
You and I.

^©Sharon Terry

I drive down the roads near our home.
They have changed
    over the year.

It was a storm that changed
    them most,
A violent, summer, wind storm.
It passed so quickly,
    leaving the difference to last forever.

The big sprawling barn fell in
    and now is burned,
        opening the sky to my eyes
            where there was no sky before.

The white house,
    the one with the beautiful maples
        spreading their carpet of leaves
            this time of year,
                all golden and yellow and red.
The house is still there.
The trees,
    gone.

My beloved cherry tree,
    the one they said wouldn't last,
       which now brings the birds to our yard,
          bends slightly toward the south.
Will it last the winter?
I wonder.

Change.
Measured by the seasons.
It is the way of nature,
    they say,
        but is it the way of woman?
            of man?

Change.
It comes
   and goes
     and we grow accustomed to it,
        and it becomes our reality,
           and when change comes again,
              we miss the change that was before.

The world around us
    cannot stay the same
        nor can the world
            within.

What was there
    becomes a memory.
What is there becomes
    the new playground for the mind,
        a new imprint,
            a new vision,
                a new memory for the future.
^©Sharon Terry