Go with the flow

Consider this poem, deepening and widening our summer topic regarding the power of rest.  It was written by Rev. Noel McInnis, who said, “… I received this advice from a mountain stream when I asked it, “If you were literate, what would you tell me?”:

FLOW
Be,
as water is,
without friction.
Flow around the edges
of those within your path.
Surround within your ever-moving depths
those who come to rest there—
enfold them, while never for a moment holding on.

Accept whatever distance
others are moved within your flow.
Be with them gently
as far as they allow your strength to take them,
and fill with your own being
the remaining space when they are left behind.

When dropping down life’s rapids,
froth and bubble into fragments if you must,
knowing that the one of you now many
will just as many times be one again.

And when you’ve gone as far as you can go,
quietly await your next beginning.