Can you feel

This poem looks to the natural world for an invitation into presence and self-acceptance.

Water flows. Wind wanders. Birds sing. Sunlight and shadow simply inhabit their own nature, without needing to justify what they are or become something else.

The poem asks whether we might offer ourselves that same freedom.

To be present. To be ourselves. To be holy-real.

I have often found it easier to recognize unselfconscious presence in nature than in myself.

Water does not seem preoccupied with whether it is flowing correctly. The breeze does not appear ashamed of moving slowly. A bird does not need an audience to justify its song.

Of course, these are human meanings projected onto the natural world. I don't know what a bird experiences when it sings or whether it possesses anything resembling our idea of freedom.

But that isn't really the point.

The natural world offers me an image of existence without the constant pressure of self-evaluation.

That is why each section begins:

“Can you feel”

The invitation is not merely to observe these things.

It is to experience them.

To feel the water's movement, the breeze against the skin, the sound of birdsong, the warmth of sunlight and the relief of shade. The poem continually returns attention from abstraction to sensation—to what is actually happening here.

I especially love the relationship between sunlight and shadow:

“They do not fight
But instead make light
Of less difference than supposed”

So much of my own life has involved dividing experience into what I should cultivate and what I should eliminate. Light and shadow offer another possibility. Difference does not necessarily require opposition. Both can belong within the same landscape.

All of this eventually turns toward the final question:

“So do you think
That now you might
Be content to feel
That you can be
Just as you are
Being holy-real?”

“Holy-real” is intentionally strange.

For much of my life, holiness was associated with becoming something better: purer, more disciplined, more virtuous, more worthy.

Here, I wanted to imagine holiness differently.

Perhaps the sacred does not only appear when we transcend our nature.

Perhaps it can also be encountered when we inhabit it fully:

Not perfected.

Not performed.

Not made acceptable.

Just present enough to be real.

And just real enough to be present.