Contemplative Meditation I
Song of Life
The quince tree flowers again. It is deeply rooted. First to flower each year.
The bee floats.
Today it is hot.
Tomorrow it will rain. Cold will come again.
The quince blossoms hold, even in snow. Soon the tree will produce fruit.
The fruit will serve its purpose.
The flowers will fall, the leaves sprout, and, next fall, all that is left will be branches: smooth, serene, artistic: life in motion I cannot see.
This tree is like me, deeply rooted and abloom, fed from a paten of love, a chalice of mercy.
I will flower. I will fruit and I will die. My purpose will be served.
The motion of my life is so quick that I don’t see it anymore than I see life in the branches of the quince so gracefully bare.
I am always surprised by its flowers and by mine.
I cut a branch for my Beloved at dawn. I know I will be offered a song. Even without a branch.
In the quiet I become branch then blossom then fruit:
My Beloved’s doing, a haiku of life, of love.
May I be continually surprised by the fruit of our union,
by the life my Beloved lends me,
by the flowering of my days that will fruit elsewhere,
alive in a blaze in my Beloved’s vase on an altar everlasting.
