Soft Rain Falls Over Fields and Hills
A beautiful sojourn in the Southern Highlands of NSW (cf http://www.thehermitage.org.au/ ) earlier in the week butts up against the mundane duties of life back at work. It is not as extreme as it seems at times. Yet, the challenge to remain centred and integrated in the face of many demands is an experience many of us recognise.
Soft Rain Falls Over Fields and Hills
Soft rain falls over fields and hills,
like a blanket.
Stitch by stitch
a gentle wet
covers us
In its bounty.
A peace descends,
and we rest
in the beautiful mounts of Mittagong.
United in one purpose,
we tell of each of our work.
Common cultural themes
rising in our reports
like a similar distillation
of a settled still.
Minds, ears and voices
come together,
to shape,
the task,
that moves us
towards the horizon
that we must go.
And go we do,
when our time is done.
But oh!
Those luscious green hills.
The docile cattle
grazing about their feeding,
disturbed so little
by our presence around them.
Now we have returned.
Back at the fray.
Calendar and diary,
they rule the day!
This event!
That appointment!
This person, that group!
Friend, family or fool.
All make their claim,
as we feel
set upon,
fed off,
like a carcass to the jackals.
Yet,
still breathing,
we feel the bites.
Or, we are spun,
as on a wild windmill.
Bits of us flung off
at various intervals,
yet still attached,
leaving us
as a tangled, matted mess.
This feeling then,
Is one of being scattered,
dis-integrated.
If only the rhythmic axle
and the gravitational force
of the spinning
would hold us connected
to that one centre.
And,
as we dwell
upon that windmill,
we think again,
of fields and hills
on the mounts of Mittagong,
where soft rain falls
as balm on our broken pain,
and feeding cattle
remind us
of nature’s rhythm,
of life and growth,
and of living again.
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