To my great surprise, in late August I
started a full-time, temporary job in Vermont. Mom was doing well in Kansas, and my Rialta maintenance bills were significantly higher than I had budgeted. While visiting a friend for lunch, I discovered this treasure of a therapeutic, farming community known as Spring Lake Ranch. My commitment is through the winter, plenty of time for discernment as to what comes next. As my one-month Ranch-iversery approached, while I drove a resident to a medical appointment an hour and a half from the Ranch, I found this poem stirring inside me. The genesis of it is the care and support I've received in my short time here, which has been unexpected and
touched me deeply.
Sun rises o’er the mountains
Casting light on leaf and limb
Sleeping creatures stir and wake
All around Spring Lake Ranch.
Outer work engages legs and lungs,
Back, arms, and hands
Tending feasts and furniture,
Fields, flocks, and forest
Cultivating home and hearth for
All around Spring Lake Ranch.
While deep inside our hearts
Pain howls, fear freezes, grief drains and anger burns
These feeling-toned necessities of human being
Alchemize and transmute,
The act of soul-making humbling
All around Spring Lake Ranch.
Yet the circle holds
As eye meets eye and hand takes hand
Hearts entrain and
Each voice rings notes of
Inspiration, fascination, appreciation.
Love grows and flows tho’ winter snows blow cold
All around Spring Lake Ranch.
Sun sets, moon rises, seasons turn
With death the seedbed for new life
Fed by rain, the shiitake way,
Something born of nothing makes every Thing a miracle
All around Spring Lake Ranch.
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