Caressing the curvature of a ball, the same surface touched by other hands. Imprints of life. The faint hover of a feathery tuft in light of the setting sun withdrawing into the shadows of the mountain. Only a fingertip trailing touch and tuft in slow motion. A shake of the snow globe, another brief appearance, another passing of heartbeats in the casual rise and fall of days upon days. A still guide in the unspeakable transition summoned by the turning planet – itself a seed fluff in the universe. The unrealized end.

Picture animated swallows, their brisk wings flapping. Each flap an offering to time whisking it away into the blue of the sky, where the transpired flaps of birds sit alongside breath and touch of tufts and mountains. Each a shudder, each an affectionate squeeze of existence. Unrestrained, the tiniest stir. Some call it loss, coiling round and round the wrists and palms of men and women. A line pulled wide with an alleged beginning and end. I say: What a passing, what a compelling aliveness in the dying moment, in the elapsing word. Is not loss then the natural progression of all life form oscillating in and out of the heart, urging even the deepest pain into the caring arms of the mother, who bore us? The beginning and the end held by the universe, what absolute and unrestrained love maturing in each simultaneous act of life.

Clouds sow dust across the evening sky. Still wings lurk and listen, while absorbing the residue heat of a summer day on an empty walkway. Tired old wings today pressing against the last hour, slowing only the stir of its own flutter, not of time. Delicate wings on closer look, served in repeated flight and braced for the urgency of strong winds. Folded, swiftly opened, vibrating to the hum of life at drowsy dusk; the name of a pub on Connor Street. A pint a minute contrasts the repetitive yawning of brilliant colors in said hidden fold. Easily missed on a tasteful sip, barely a blink of the eye, butterfly breeding its soul into the charge of night. I sit and watch and watchful too the winged creation, both here in mutual residence of this ever-passing lifetime.

Feathered wings beyond the open door. They too were young once.  A runway for outstretched legs pressing forth. Outbound soar the souls! Hark flight – they dress in dreams, shoulder the world young – carry life full and in your final hour softly cradle death. Nightime carries their immature dreams and houses their fears, overhanging earth’s songs and cries. The passing of city and pasture. Morning, at the windows they turn their heads, faces pressed to thin glass before mother’s call to supper. Innocence is the glue joining feathers. Trust, then the onslaught of energy and direction.

We journey, and with time leaping forward we all step into growing bodies, aging bodies, dying bodies. Flight seamlessly hurries in and out of life.  It’s okay.

Between tiles sits the unseen truth: A subtle space continues the flow of tumbling tiles in quiet presence. Space does not morph into anything other than the all and nothing it unites. It is inconceivable to our rapt attention to only form and movement. A more patient observer, however, will discover that both form and movement originate in space.

The beginning beckons space to reveal the world around us (or space beckons the beginning?). A discovery, which may soon prompt love for the overlooked canvas against which the tiles come to life.

Space is plain. It doesn’t capture the stage in loud fits or screams in tossing colors and whirlwinds of drama. The absence of action and intent is remarkable, foreign to us ever performing beings. We are much like tiles set on a floor waiting impatiently for a push to rock us into motion. Our fall is nothing short of spectacular in our own making, until we lay greedily on the ground awaiting the next push.

I invite space into my sour recognition of tiles leaning into tiles and missing that, which is already here…has always been here, before my wake and after my parting, before youth and after the aged lay on their death beds releasing their last breath into the hold. Space is my hold. A motherly overseer to my being, my fighting, my urging and my soaring. It does not judge my feverish play on this short visit to earth. Ever present and allowing that to happen, which must.

In space I turn to a friend much like the shapeless clouds I pictured as a boy, dragons swooning across the sky. Only now have I come to recognize and embrace space as the friend I feared had abandoned me. I have been blind to the unobtrusive universe in and around me. Waking is opening ones eyes to the world as for the first time, softly smiling, silently knowing.