Preliminaries

It is a flavor flooding my senses
Every aspect of my being suddenly alert
Tantalized by longing for something seeming always just out of reach
It is tension in the body, that deeply inhaled moment of potential kenesis
Quivering through every inch
As I tremble standing, kneeling, arms upraised, pouring offering, pouring out myself
A vessel full to bursting with terror and joy and love
It is so quiet here
In the moment before movement begins, the sudden startling clang of the hammer strike
Feeling the harsh shaping of my very sinews 
Giving myself up to the agony of loss and the guarantee of nothing save this moment, this breath
Then the next
And the next
I anticipate plunging back into myself, into wholeness, into healing
Knowledge echoes gently, whispers it is not yet time, stay with me here
Within the hawk screeches a warning, a reminder
Ride it as it comes, give yourself over to the simplicity of dissolution, 
You cannot fight this thing
There is no mold for this, no heights barred you, no depth too great to sound
Settle into it here, slow and wise and fertile as the waters 
Glinting shards and shadows in your eye
You have not – yet – lost it 
It has been waiting here, patiently furled, these slow tendrils crumbling the rock you so stubbornly built
The wild reclaims me, and the sorrow, and the surety of who I stand to be
Of the work that I must do
Inhaling, all is silence but for the echoes of this coming storm