Spirit Fire

by Donna Mitchell-Moniak

A leaf
A wheel
A drop of rain
These are the stages of life.

Clay
Sand
Sunshine
These are the results.

At first we emerge, born from something else like leaf from branch.
We move seemingly independent and free
Yet attached and going nowhere.

Then we fall off, tumbling in discontent.
This begins movement.
Movement starts the wheel turning.

Life after life we roll along.
The wheel rounds us.
At first we are like the rim, peripheral with life, barely engaging.
Then we become like the spokes, completely necessary.
Eventually like the hub – empty of all but space and necessity.

Then the drop of rain, complete, evaporating, giving, done.
But done through dissolution, absorption, release.
Giving and release are synonymous terms.

Journal: June 27, 2007