Lesson of the Waterfall

Sandy Hartman

After viewing a mighty waterfall
The venerable Zen master was inspired
To teach this lesson

Life is a vast river moving ceaselessly
         Ever changing
         Never stopping

We flow together in this great river
And do not know ourselves
Until one day in a seeming disaster
The river breaks over a jagged cliff

It shatters
Into a scattered chaos of storming mists and radiance
Filling an unknown abyss
It plunges wildly
        Downward
        Falling
        To its destiny

                    Then

The river seems no more

Yet if one carefully observes the tumbling rage
He will see that the falling mists are clouds of tiny droplets
        Each free from the others                Each different
        Knowing itself
        Each following its own way in the rainbow spray
        Each a child of the river

At last, in a great crash upon the rocks below
The waterfall meets its end
The tiny droplets fade away
Giving their story back to the river
Back to the river
That never stops remembering on its journey to the sea
Back to its place under the sun
To the beginning
Where it was meant to be

And so
We come and go
Yet                                                      

Always
We remain

c 9/07    Sandy Hartman  
The best way to enjoy Sandy's poems is listening to her reading them aloud on her website
www.Eonwriter.com.
Sandy is an award winning poet and member of www.NLAPW. org