Deep in the Cloister

Sunlight effaced by dense clouds rolling out of the forest and ascending over the pasture. One has to learn how to sleep again, and how to discern between the many dreams that compete for their attention. Mary Oliver poems for the ten thousandth time at a juncture fueled in part by the ongoing insight that we do not know what we do not know. Side glances, little smiles. I pace back and forth in the hay loft near midnight, shivering but grateful for the spare moonlight coming in through the windows. We make nothing for ourselves alone, for we are not ourselves alone. Spring, say the chickadees, flitting from limb to limb. Love, says the moon, skating like an oyster shell across the tidal stars. Only this, says my heart, deep in the cloister lovers build when over and over they whisper Her Name.