Community

I thought about community today. About how important it is in our lives.

Stacking wood left handed (with my right arm in a sling), I picked up a piece of wood clearly etched with the trails of eight grubs travelling off into adulthood in two pairs of four. Certainly, they were individuals, as evidenced by the clear line of their solo journeys, but in the dark beneath the bark of the eucalyptus, they ate and moved along shoulder to shoulder. Companionship and a sense of camaraderie must have made their blind travels a bit more bearable.

Living as I do, alone, I sometimes wonder where my community resides. The answer I know is “everywhere”, but on the occasional day, at a certain moment when a cloud might occlude the sun’s light or when a ravin calls despondently, the chill of being separated from others can pierce my heart.

Happily, though, the feeling fades fast as I touch wood and call out: “part of me”.

The following poem speaks about the joy of socially hanging out and conversing with friends.

Waxwings

Four tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berrybush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety —
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk —
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together — for this I have abandoned all my other
lives

Robert Francis