take comfort in this

Wiring
~ A.R. Ammons from his book A Coast of Trees*

Radiance comes from
on high, and, staying,
sends down silk
lines to the flopping
marionette, me, but
love comes from
under the ruins and
sends the lumber up
limber into leaf that
touches so high it nearly
puts out the radiance

*I brought my copy of A Coast of Trees on my San Juan Islands adventure. I thought the poems would fit the all the green, misty islands.  I am in Friday Harbor, Lopez Island today, escaping a day of silence at the retreat with a lovely new friend. He and I are having a fun, geeky time. I had my annual summer beer just now. There's nothing to do but we can do it in noble noise instead of noble silence.

The key word, for me, in Ammons' poem above, whose work was introduced to me by a former acquaintance**, is nearly. Nearly puts out the radiance. Nothing ever puts out the radiance. Take comfort.

**This acquaintance ghosted me, after posing as a loving friend for several years. He severed ties, never talked to me, even though he had agreed to have a state of grace conversation within a year of breaking off our connection. I call him a former acquaintance because no friend treats a friend with shunning, ghosting behavior.  Silence can be wonderful. The silent treatment is abusive. And shunning is widely regarded as abuse.