Life is a Conversation

more than anything

life is a conversation

a coming together

of all our longings



a youthfulness of

knowing and being known

are you ready

for the next step



are you ready

to speak up, to sing out loud

with the voice of a

mockingbird, whose brightest songs



are spiraling out joyful threads

of light, mending together

the deepest sorrows

of the world



are you ready

to speak up, to listen to

a single child’s

cry of loneliness, or



an old gray haired woman’s

gay laughter, do you know now

how to look and to see

how the thread of each thought



leads you inevitably to

the next moment of your life

there is gathering

within me a great gratitude



of the earth (and all she teaches)

in these

early morning hours

when the world is



stillness itself

when unspoken words

begin forming the day

it is in these moments



of sanity where I begin

realizing the salvation

found in silence

I am the stillness then



singing out loud

from the quiet depths

a song which marks

the bright passing



of the self into the

world, becoming its own

kind of blessing, as the

earth breathes in once more







Ron Starbuck

Copyright 2010