Lately a New Voice

Lately a new voice is making itself heard

deep within the usual cacophony

that hardly sleeps, hardly rests,

except during those few moments

when that merciful drop

to the dark bottom of awareness

opens a new cavern of wordless, thoughtless

something. Is it presence?

Too soon for names.

But the whole world changes there,

becomes a place I do not recognize

cannot manipulate.

Control is as ineffective

as car wheels on clear ice,

careening when it tries, off base,

irrelevant.

For moments, the world of my body stills

as if blood wasn't streaming everywhere,

as if there was no heartbeat or shifting muscle,

no impulse to move,

a thousand things to be done.

The new voice sometimes sounds out words

I don't use often enough:

praise, trust, thanks, surrender.

Peace. Be.

This new voice is content with the world

and with myself in it. This new voice

carries me like a rushing stream

towards a waiting lake

and I am breathless and content with the ride.

I wait. I turn toward it as often as I can,

as often as I dare, and sometimes

I'm too frightened to sit waiting for it to arrive.

The old voices return, then,

catching me up on all I've missed and heard

a million times, spilling over me like an infant

throwing up milk on my shoulder,

reminding me of all I've left undone

and that needs, needs, doing.