I want you to celebrate yourself.
Shake off your dust.

Find fierce stones that speak to you
hold them, gentle now, then
drop them into rivers
wrinkle your wide-eyed face to focus
as they sink
straight down
oblivious to the current.

Muck arrives through always-clear
water and we receive her nourishment: learning again
what we’re here to attend.
Listen until you can hear
your own cells singing, the blue bird said to me today.
Then, sing. Sing! Here, like this…

Dust burns wild here. The smoke
makes us wretch, too. Still
I offer my tears and somehow hosts
of forgotten children and ancestors
heal right along with me.

Our tears aren’t pulled from us by
some too-strong past, group, or being.
We offer them. We offer them gladly, most days.

So, I speak just to you now—
one offeror to another.

You are being called, right here.
Listen again to one blue bird on a gray day.
Attend her. Attend the voice that comes to your window.
Could you have been wrong about her? Is she really the bully
you imagined her to be yesterday?

All she seems to ask me now is this:
Step into the world.
Get closer. Listen. Celebrate yourself.

Celebrate until all the birds
arrange themselves comfortably
on nearby branches to hear you,
joining the celebration and singing the song
that you learned from them…

Shake off your dust.
Let’s celebrate ourselves together here.