Sestina to Yes

There was a time when all
I knew were the habits of living,
motions looking for connection
beyond the mechanical, lost,
churning of the hour
hungering for the feeling of "yes!"

If I'd only known yes
was the secret, it all
would have unfolded in an hour
or so of fruitful living,
washing away the confusion of lost
and wasteful motion without connection -

grounding me into the radiant connection
of hands, heart and Spirit singing "yes!"
I am no longer lost
in the frenzy of it all.
With the job of living
I fill each and every hour

and try to remember that this hour,
this one moment of connection,
is a rare gift of living
present in the moment of yes,
not in the dream where all
is a game to be won or be lost.

There is no winning without those who have lost-
no eternity without the finite hour.
Still, the pulse, the rhythm - the heartbeat of all,
calls the soul longing for holy connection
with all that is made of heartfelt yes
and joy and loving and living...

I do not know the secret of living
or how to accept all that is lost,
but I know it begins with the Spirit of yes
and removing the shackles of the grinding hour.
And found in loving, spirited connection
that binds us one to All.

When my living be done and in it's final hour,
When the last has been lost - even the threadbare connection,
I hope to sing yes as I surrender, let go and relinquish it all.

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*Sestinas go back to 13th century troubadours - 6 stanzas ending with the same 6 words repeated in a specific pattern that forms a spiral, driving the words and theme deeper and deeper. The 7th stanza of 3 lines uses all 6 words. They were performed as a contest between troubadours - kind of an obsessive-compulsive meets hip-hop poetry slam. And for my purposes an exercise in cognitive restoration post-chemo.

**No - also a powerful word medicine when used wisely.