Rio Grande Canoe

A poem from my friend Michael Hock:

Row Your Boat

Yes, it is far, then it’s close.

Who one is recedes as one draws near.

As if first one climbs a steep way, then discovers one has wings,

or deaf forever, one awakens to the heartbeat thrum of a butterfly,

and why do you not now fly, or attend the secret whisper?

When the way opens one is close upon the Sea.

How easy to lay down the oars and drift.

How quiet it is, and serene. And yes, that’s okay,

the current here is strong, yet keep yourself in the flow,

steer the deep and potent, hold steady intent,

and skirt the sleepers and sandbars.

As if the scent of the limitless is on the breeze,

just be steady, be calm, but do not allow attention to lapse,

do not surrender to rest, but keep the tools clean

and fit and easy to hand—these body, mind, emotion tools.

This near, do not yet let these slip away.

Home this close, just stay the course, row gently, gently,

down the stream.

 

Michael Hock lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is a  long-time student of the MasterPath, www.masterpath.org. He loves to write about the pure celebration of life that is a result of his efforts to perceive the true and the real in every moment, and how the Divine, embodied in the Sat Guru, opens the faculties of perception and recognition so that life can be lived in joy and dedication.

Image: Rio Grande River in Albuquerque, NM