The Early Shift

 

The Early Shift

To rise early.

To sit in the holy dark.

To sit like a mother 

keeping watch over their child.

To sit like a lover 

who watches the gentle slumber 

of the beloved.

To sit like a sage 

watching for the ripples of wisdom 

on the face of the deep pool 

of the soul.

To sit and mingle our breath

with the fiery breeze of the 

hovering dove.

To sit and allow our silence

to become a word of the Word

who unseen holds all things

in being.

This is our work.

To sit.

To breathe.

To pray.

To be.

To watch with holy attention 

the places and times that so few see,

that so few notice.

To sit with the last star in the sky.

To sit with the first bird’s tentative song,

little more than a whisper,

little more than a breath.

To watch for the hidden point of turning,

when it is no longer night,

when it is not yet day,

when it is the holy time 

of ending and beginning,

after moonset, before sunrise,

when for the briefest of moments

the sky is the colour of heaven.

When the mind ceases its chatter,

when the heart may be surrendered to the silence,

and the silence warmly hold 

all tears,

all suffering,

all sorrow,

all pain,

to itself

in infinite compassion.

Breathing peace,

breathing love,

witnessed by our sitting,

witnessed by our presence,

witnessed by our silence.

Until the silence yields 

to the sounds of slow waking

as the world pulls itself together, 

puts off the little daily death of sleep 

and stumbles towards busyness anew,

and thinks only now,

only now,

do things begin.