Who would have guessed — when I tilted my heart
toward baby lizard, perched on a colored desert stone,

she’d blink one eye at me, turn to smile, it seemed,
and lend a listening ear?

I’d only said in a lizard way:
I love you.

And who would have thought — that when stone had heard me
loving her, it would, it seem, speak back?
Loving stone, I was!

Stone, I so admire your villages.
I smile to your many stone peoples.

I eavesdrop on universal questions posed
around sacred fires carefully tended.

And around one hearth, among
cinder specks scattered– that one minute wisp,
grain of cinder there.

Dare I say I love you too?
I do! I do!

In that cinder grain I hear —
worlds of stars, sweetly singing!

By way of explanation, reader friend,
such is what a practice of
loving all beings equally
has made of me.

Crazed being?
Could be.

But could you nonetheless
accept the possibility
and likewise go love adventuring?

If you’d prefer, we could earnestly
and objectivity talk it all through.

Or say ~ Love come!

Speak through us.
Teach us how to listen.