Letting the Leaf Fall: On unscheduled wonder
I’ve been thinking a lot about the tension between my need to control outcomes and the world’s gentle, persistent reminder that it has its own timing. This emerged from that space.
Companion of unscheduled wonder
i wake to the weather of being human—
a little ache,
a little hurry,
lists louder than breath,
the world whispering worries through every window.
still,
you meet me in the middle of ordinary.
a leaf lets go before its season,
drifting through quiet prayer like a soft permission:
there is a time that won’t wait for calendars,
a clock older than schedules,
truer than my plans.
a monarch (maybe early)
tilts toward rust-orange blooms,
wing finding flower the color of its own becoming,
as if beauty remembers
where beauty belongs.
while above it,
a sky so clear it can’t help but say yes.
hands share silence,
and silence shares us back;
simple kindness passes from palm to palm,
and i remember how small mercies multiply—
how gentleness still mends what fear frays.
Companion of unscheduled wonder,
teach my timing to trust yours.
let what is ready to fall, fall—
even if i’m not ready.
let what is ready to rise, rise—
even if i can’t see how.
loosen my grip on outcomes;
tune me to the tenderness at hand.
thank you for another day gone through,
not without sorrow,
not without surprise.
keep me awake to early monarchs and early mercies,
to leaves that leave on time that isn’t mine,
to the quiet that gathers us and gives us back—
to us.
and when tomorrow arrives—
however it arrives—
may my first breath lean toward awe,
so the ordinary can sing again.
Where did you find a moment of “unscheduled wonder” this week?