Early one morning I had been sweeping the yard of a funky Airbnb we were staying in, in California. We were there in order to be near a family member who was living through a hard time. In the blessed early sunlight of California, it was a joy to be sweeping that unkempt yard. I remembered how good it can feel to take care of a place, even a temporary one. Something within me came alive, and the poem arrived.
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When I sweep the yard in the morning I don’t do it for myself, because I like it tidy, I don’t do it for the yard’s sake, because it enjoys being clean.
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I do it for the shy one who lives inside me, who loves this world better than I ever will, whose innocence is beyond understanding,
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who has nothing to prove, whose sweetness shines on the earth so the earth loves itself again, and who I only ever know in glimpses that leave me
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breathless with longing, with hope that goodness is still possible, is still somehow present in the world, and which knock away all my ideas of who or what I should be.
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So we pick up the broom again, he and I, and send the old leaves skittering across the patio, and the dust smoking over the tiles like ink from a brush, and make the little heaps we’ll gather in later.
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This is how he wakes up, this is how his wakefulness turns our little yard into the bright place I call home.
✨ Thank you for reading this week’s poem. Explore my Events Calendar when you get a moment, to see upcoming online and in-person meditation events. To dive into more of my teaching, download The Way for a deep and progressive meditation program.
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