We see so little
of what is really here.
Here below the surface
of seeing.
That which makes
the visible
being.
Branches
spreading beneath
where soil and air meet.
In darkness.
In stillness.
In silence.
Life so dense,
so close in,
that it can hold
the hungry, the thirsty,
the seeking—
whole.
Letting grounded lives just be.
Free to seek liquid light
flowing clear and universal
slaking the thirst
to know
to grow
to connect and contribute
with all that is
in earth
and in heaven
in ways seen
and unseen.
This letting go by
each small leaf
of liquid to atmosphere—
this respiration,
an aspiration
of divine love.
Like fish swimming in stream
breathing out
their community
then breathing it back in
one long chain of being
generation to generation
capillary to capillary
a history of ancestry
traveling from
tiniest tendril roots
to trunk
to branch
to twig
to leaf.
A drawn out long distance
love affair
this drink from dirt
that flows tall and wide
and deep
through the veins and arteries
of what we see
and don’t see
of this tree
of life.
Jay Griffith is an explorer of ideas and a facilitator of dialogue and relationships. He has served as chair of his community council and on the Utah Village Square and Living Room Conversation teams. Jay co-founded and manages a monthly discussion group, Faith Again, as well as co-facilitates its sister group, Think Again. By profession, Jay helps create and market brands, products, and services and has assisted various non-profits. Other passions include trail running, writing poetry, reading, creating, the arts, earth exploring, and earth stewardship. He has served in a Latter-Day Saint African Refugee Branch since 2016. He and his wife, Jane, live in Millcreek, Utah and are in affectionate familial relationship with three grown children, two daughters-in-law, one grandbaby, two cats, an old dog, and four chickens.
