Beautiful Lanterns

I was out in the world
With lanterns
Looking for myself
When you found me

Dragonflies everywhere
The summer before your call
Harbingers for transformation
Thick in the Egyptian blue sky

Daily, the poetry of my heart
Swept me out of my home
Singing tales of a love
So deep
You’d have to swim
To the depths of yourself
Before you ever made it to the ocean

What is it about searching
For something
That we’ve never even had?

For years
I walked and walked and walked some more
Listening to the poets
Sweating, troubling, enduring
Navigating the landscapes of my soul

Until my spirit whispered: “let go”
Told me to break my heart right open
Til I could put it back together
With songs and hands of healing

Creating new ecosystems
Inside of my skin
Without having to go to
The trouble of dying

And then
As I was learning to follow butterflies
Letting moonlight send me to sleep
Giving my shame back to the earth
Watching tiny creatures traverse tree bark highways

You found me
And the most beautiful part
Is that I wasn’t even looking
When I finally realised, you were always there.