Treehouse
Suspended between reality and dreams, 
cedar walls breathe out their warm welcome – a scent from some Other place. 
Spider’s webs and dust motes allow a relieved settling into unsophistication.
A garden chair, softly padded, receives me quietly.
A match scratches, flares. A candle flame finds its balance.
I settle to awareness.
Leaves flutter, sunlight flickers, birds extemporise, trees grow..slowly, so slowly.
Heart beats, blood flows, eyes blink, breath sinks
Silence.

Trees groan in a rising breeze; the platform shifts.
I’m carried by the disruption, unsettled by my surroundings, jolted by the tossing branches, alarmed.
This is a transient place, a frail refuge, a place for now but not for ever. 
It will break, will fall, will sink - back to its organic origins.
Damp will invade, rot will take over, fungi will dissolve, beetles will chew.
One day a floorboard will give way, the door will hang loose, the wind will enter and raid.

But for now it gives an in-between place, a refuge between worlds.
A place to re-enter the wondering of childhood and to settle into the contemplation of older age.
A place to be at one with growing, earthly ancestry. To commune with the trees in the syphoning of life from roots. 
To catch glimpses of Spirit as she flits past at the edge of awareness.
To wait, breathless, as S/he shyly expands into Presence. 
Peace.