Go Out (by Timm)

This from a journal passage in December 2003.

GO OUT

Timm O'Cobhthaigh

Go out and gaze upon the night sky:
Let the awe fill your soul.

Spend a few days in the Utah desert sitting on a mesa
and allow the vastness to invade your thoughts.

Stand upon the Pacific shore when a storm is raging hard:
let it toussel your hair and sting your face.

Let the rawness sink deep into your brain
blowing off the stagnant cobwebs
that have accumulated from the mundane days of your life.

Find a forest glen early in summer;
walk slowly among the nodding flowers.

Let the warm sun seduce you like a lover,
let the beautiful transform your heart.

And when your're done, walk through the woods
ever so slowly. Feel its rhythm
and listen for the music.

You'll hear it in the wind that grazes the treetops,
from the sound of the winged ones sharing their story.

It's in the heady scents and musty undercarriage of the forest,
the roughness of the bark like a Braille text
waiting to be read

and the sunshine filtering through the boughs
energizing as it dances.

It is time to be reborn from the mindless monotony
that we have accepted as life.

To allow all the awe and wonder
and joy and beauty
that so overwhelmed us when we were small.

To cast its spell once again
and return the joy that can be found

in each and every way,
each and every day.

Timm, his father Bill, sister Molly, brother David (me) and
mother Mary, at Leu Gardens in Orlando, spring 2007.