3 great gifts

as a stranger in a strange land

three great gifts hold me like a parent:

place:
the Smoky Mountains, where I feel myself as right
as a hand in a glove,
where who I am becomes larger,
deeper, wider, truer
when I connect with trail and stream,
peak and flower and bear,
and I know myself as a child of the Earth,
 

people:
                        family,
 
  teaching,
my heart leaps into another
and I see them,
and I touch the strain of the greatness within them
which struggles with the smallness of the boxes
that strive to hold them within,
and I know myself as father and grandfather,

 
 as brother and cousin and uncle,
and teacher,
and, like with the Earth,
I feel rightness in who the world has allowed me to be,

and partner:
to find another with whom my loneliness goes away
and I become better,


not only because her love validates me,
but also because her love makes me better
by helping me resist the boxes that makes me lesser,
and with my partner I am a wholeness,

without such gifts
I might get lost in myself
and be as a stranger in a strange land,
 
 empathy has that of the divine about it,
for only when we understand can we care,
and only when we care can we find ourselves at home.

by Henry Walker
July 8, ’12