Poem: John O'Donohue, "For Freedom"

 As a bird soars high

In the free holding of the wind,

Clear of the certainty of ground,

Opening the imagination of wings

Into the grace of emptiness

To fulfill new voyagings,

May your life awaken

To the call of its freedom.

 

As the ocean absolves itself

Of the expectation of land,

Approaching only

In the form of waves

That fill and pleat and fall

With such gradual elegance

As to make of the limit

A sonorous threshold

Whose music echoes back among

The give and strain of memory,

Thus may your heart know the patience

That can draw infinity from limitation.

 

As the embrace of the earth

Welcomes all we call death,

Taking deep into itself

The right solitude of a seed,

Allowing it time

To shed the grip of former form

And give way to a deeper generosity

That will one day send it forth,

A tree into springtime,

May all that holds you

Fall from its hungry ledge

Into the fecund surge of your heart.