THE NOURISH POEM

Transcribed from the Belly of the Nourish Practice

This morning I had nothing left,

Not even the will to drink,

So I let myself be deserted,

Formed into a trough

To be sipped, eventually gulped,

Remembered

As an urn of the Beloved,

Made of trees and stones,

Black soil and quenching waters

In this circle of enduring Earth,

Spark of life seeded in the breath.

Once I noticed your generosity

I allowed myself to feel

Just how thirsty I have been,

Which also awakened my hunger

To be had, filled again by Beauty,

Its simple gifts: the breath

That breathes us and the nourishment

Nature provides, filling me

Not only with the gratitude of reception,

But its hidden side: overflow

For giving back.

A great otherness lives inside me,

Breathing me, if I care to notice,

And so nourish the actualization

Of all imagined, if I but care

To inhabit the palace

Of its invisible architecture,

This chunk of Earth,

We call the body.

So I let go clinging to the face

Of what seems so real,

Doing the busy days on my own

As a mausoleum of self-preservation.

Now I begin the mornings

As a worthy, disciplined dependent,

Vessel of inspiration

At the gates of this fleshy heaven,

Of hallowed land, breathed by the breath.

Grown from the ground inside me

Too close to notice

When I am but a doing-machine, producing,

Trying to maintain what I must also allow,

Fertilized by the source of life,

Center of the Earth

In order to proceed supporting the cycle

Of birth, life, death, and rebirth—

All the body, my senses, this breath, a common carbon chain,

Reconstituting the world inside me, already breathing,

Already brimming, when I care enough to allow it

To remake, charge, and recharge me.

This morning I could barely breathe,

Was forced to discover another way

To grow some meager sighs into bellows,

Finally a forest fire of buoyant becoming,

Which was the beginning of this blessing.

For this you rely on me, my small wonder,

Surrendered enough to receive,

To fulfill your gracious giving,

Welcome you back to your home in my belly,

To manifest such wholeness.

Too fast, we go too fast these days

If we do not also slow to replenish,

Trust also in the power of softness.

Oh, the deeper I accept my hollows

The more fulfilled I can be, allow myself

To be filled again and again by the gift,

All for free.

When so many fill their depths with things

Where a cool, vibrant emptiness must exist

We cloud your eyes, congest your lungs,

Dam your veins, constipate your belly,

Inhibit sunlight, polluting the air,

Sludging the rivers, warming the planet,

Hampering rebirth, all because

We fail to realize what is already given

And grieve what can be forgiven,

Allowing us to receive, return the favor,

Complete the cycle of nourishment

When we but take the time

To notice and be noticed,

To love and be loved.

Listen here to Jack recite his poetry