Try not to rise
above your longing.
Sink deeper, plant pain in the earth.
Try not to rise
above your weariness.
Sink deeper, plant sorrow in the loam.
Try not to rise above your body.
Sink deeper, plant every breath.
To the Mother, you are sown.
Breathing and sorrow are seedlings.
Offer them.
Her grace will open you
like a sprouted wound.
Darkness will nourish you with
infinitesimal starry voices
rising from the furrows of her plough.
Beauty is an underground power.
It knows how to ascend,
just as it knew how to fall.
What has no name
meets no resistance.
Something green and
ineffably innocent trembles
from your astounded heart.
Here's the secret:
the warmth that draws us upward
is inside.
Painting: Detail, Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross, by Botticelli