When the rains came
she held her spear upright,
flooded the desert plain
and scattered the birds
scratching across the sky,
bleeding light
into the darkness of land.
When the rains came
she lay down in the mud
and drank in the light.
When the rains came
she suddenly realized
how thirsty she’d been.
When suffering comes our way, we often respond with a fight, for we see only despair even in the light. Eventually, if we are wise, we learn to surrender to its message, lying down in the mud and drinking in whatever it has to give us. Finally, one day, we look back on our suffering and see how we have transformed–indeed how we might even be mildly grateful for the suffering because we swim a deeper more meaningful river now.
© Andrea Mathews 2015
