The Grace of Longing

I watch again as you walk… no, glide
across the carpeted ground
up the stairs leading to the dais
where you gather yourself in the graceful motions
so familiar to me.

Seeing you again after so many years
of not seeing you,
I am instantly filled with the beautiful longing
that connects my soul to yours
the longing that replaced
my sadness so many years ago.
Oh, how I have missed that face of yours
that face that quietens my restlessness,
my fears, my doubts, my disconnect
from all that is holy and whole,
you bring me back to rest inside the stillness.
I loved you almost from the first
moment I heard your call
stripped like a birch I too had been chosen,
laid open and waiting bank side
for your heart song to craft and launch
my canoe on the river of sound and light.

Out of the mist and smoke
of India you appeared and
gently handed me the rope of longing.
I hadn’t understood the purpose,
the necessity of longing
until its return
just now.

There had been reminders though,
especially in the fire season,
distant smoke to me always smells like god.
I reach inside to heal myself and I am filled with gratitude
that the grace of longing has returned.

God is Love, and Love was in the beginning. The entire creation is the result of love. We have been sent down into this world through love, and the cause of our return will also be love.
_{Maharaj Sawan Singh, Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. II}