Let them all pass through

Let them all pass through

On a beach at the end of the world 
With my brother Josh at night
The stars illuminate the sky
We drink in our smallness 
Against the backdrop
Of this vastness

But then, we remember the truck
Josh drove it into a ditch
Where it is now stuck
But I was the one who told him
To take that turn
We blame each other
Back and forth

Then, we expand back out
Into the cosmos
And see the Milky Way overhead

The crescent of the moon
Reflects alabaster on the ocean,
Shimmering

Our conversation opens back up
As we watch the moon slowly sink
Below the horizon

All is well again

Spirituality is sensing smallness
Spirituality is sensing smalness

Here,
On this beach at the end of the world
On the desert side of Kauai
With no light for miles
Except the stars
Our smallness is easy to sense

But then,
The argument starts up again:

"What should we do about the truck?"
"Let's go to sleep, I don't want to think about this now."
"No, we have to figure it out."

Back and forth we go,
Old hurts resurface,
We forget the stars

The cosmos
Radiant all around us
Interrupts:
"You are small, tiny
And your truck is too
Stop your bickering."

We listen
And expand again.

The next morning
We awake from waves lapping 
At our sleeping bags
We scurry away from the water
And fall back asleep.

In a few hours
I wake up
Bow three times to the day ahead
Say thanks for refreshing sleep
Dunk naked in the clear warm water
And behold the dunes.

I walk back to the truck
Still in the ditch
Of course it hasn't miraculously
Freed itself

Hungry, I look for our food
BZZZZZZZZZ 
I hear
Flies have infested every fruit we brought

So I go for the bread, in a plastic bag
It's been chewed through.
Mice.

Again, the programs start up:
Who left the windows open?
We return
To the addiction
Of blame

I put all the fruits together
To keep the flies
All in one place

My brother separates them
To keep the flies
At a low concentration

Each of us have our logic
For fruit arranging

Eventually, we tire 
Of this bickering
We still have the truck to deal with
Our water is limited
And the day is heating up...

***

With much help
We made it out of the desert
And days later
We are back to having fun
Surfing waves above our pay grade
We don't really know how to surf

"I want to catch one more wave," says Josh
And paddles away.

I wait for him to come back
But he doesn't

Where is he?
These are big waves.
Capable of damage.

I paddle towards the shore
By now, the sun has set completely.

Vivid colors 
Grace the sky.
I see them, but they don't sink in.
My heart is beating fast
In my chest
My mind races:
Did Josh drown?
Did he hit his head?

Josha!
I scream 
No one responds
I don't know what to do

I scream again: Josha! Josha!
A woman looks at me
She asks what he looked like
Recognition, in her eyes
As I describe 
That he looks like me

She saw him go back to the land
I'm filled with hope

I paddle back 
And find Josh 
Waving for me
And worried too
He thought I'd follow him out of the water
I thought he'd come back to me
A simple misunderstanding
No big deal in reality
But in our minds
It was

We did not appreciate
The sunset
We did not feel
Our smallness
We were too busy
With survival

Maybe tomorrow
My mind will expand out
Once again
And become big enough
To appreciate
The vastness of the world
And the smallness of itself
In comparison

The doorway of wonder
Swings open
And closes again

Just like every other feeling
Wonder doesn't last

Appreciate it when you can
But don't think
You can jam the doorway open

Anger, blame, and fear -- these are visitors
To the house of emotions too
Let them all pass through

Let them all pass through