Softness


One robin chirps to the left of me;
to my right -- beyond sight -- crow
caws, one, maybe, two.
                               And the softness 
time caught in the nearly
still breeze as if, if rightly
understood, where I am is where
I am to be . . . that relationship 
of time and place and being
where there is no other place
to be once called paradise.
I know how fleeting that is,
how strong the stories
of our urge to fall,
our betrayal of whom we are
and that other urge for 
redemption, reconciliation.
But for now, the birds and the
breeze and the softness of time
is good enough for me.