the totality that is here

 

the totality of the harmony

the sky and the land together here,

in the dry heart of the Southwest, are the whole story,

not the few chapters I can read at times back East,

here the ancestral Puebloans could not forget to notice the Heavens,

they could not lose themselves in their fragments of moments,

in moments disjointed from the totality here,

for the whole commands us to notice it, all day and night long,

this is where water is special:

only about 4 inches of rain fall each year,

so plants are subdued

and the sky is accessible and clear enough

for the heavens to show themselves,

these people here had to know the world as a whole, 

for they were swallowed in these truths,

they had to embrace their relationship to the heavens:

the cardinal points burned into them

each time the Sun rose,

each time the Sun set,

each time the Moon and stars came out 

and stately marched across the heavens,

it is as if God needed no messiah to interpret the ambiguous,

for here the universe and our place in it shouts in revelation every day,

the world here keeps us hungry, awake, alive,

ready to release ourselves into awe,

to let our lives resonate with the harmonies

so present everywhere we go

in this world so obviously touched by grace.

by Henry H. Walker

March 10, ‘26