Sum

 

Stillness holds motion.

Don’t believe us?

Look closer.

Lichen

look

still,

even simple,

 

but our universe

is not.

We are an alliance of

algae and fungi,

a symbiosis of two kingdoms.

We drape from trees,

spread over rocks,

erode into bones.

We create life, and we

don’t

discriminate.

Even death moves.

 

Motion is an agreement

of forces:

muscles contract as others relax,

feet push against and the ground pushes back,

your body pulls us and our bodies pull yours.

As you sit against the earth,

still

as lichen,

we are all of us spinning, tilting, revolving.

None of us unmoved,

no one excluded,

never

are we separate,

ever.

 

This isn’t a secret, nor is it

a threat.

Living is a balance of the indiscrete  —

birth, death, growth, decay —

each moment of movement a shift in the whole.

Messy, tenacious, spirited, integral —

life is the one constant

that contains us all.

 

Live wholly.

Be your sum.

None of us thrives alone,

not even you.

Especially you.

Like us, you are an alliance,

a whirling stillness, a partnering of forces.

You too hold the paradox

of stillness and motion,

the wrap of time and space

in the humming exchange

of us all.