Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2024
My Temple of the Green Hills, poems by Carolyn Chilton Casas.
My Temple of the Green Hills
When I’m searching for trust
in the transience of everything,
it comforts me to
walk the green living hills
in meditation, listen to the creek
chanting mantras
to the rhythm of spring.
I shut my eyes for a few paces
climbing upward,
ears open wide
to a choir of hawks and sparrows,
hymn of rainwater
flowing down fissures
carved into the forgiving earth.
Concerns pass through my mind
like rosary beads
slipping through fingers.
Come summer,
the creek will grow silent,
the luscious green turn
tawny and brown.
What choice do we have
but to hold what we love close
for the time it is with us,
then open our hands
to let what we have cared for
take wing?
Saying Yes to Vipassana
I can say yes to this opening
to reveal my true self,
letting responsibilities, worries
and the ego’s dross fall
to the edge of awareness.
Saying yes to fasting
from speaking,
denying that rush to fill
sacred silence
with a tumble of words.
I say yes to acceptance
and to the rays of affection
reflected in each person’s smile,
even in their downcast eyes.
Yes, to the cumbersome zafu
beneath me, the exasperating
desire for ease.
And yes, to this body, this breath,
muscles already strengthening
as I climb the steep slope
toward home.
© Carolyn Chilton Casas
Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki master and teacher who often explores ways of healing in the articles she writes for energy and wellness magazines in several countries. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal. She lives on the central coast of California where she enjoys nature, hiking, and beach volleyball. More of Carolyn’s work can be found on Facebook or Instagram and in her second collection of poetry Under the Same Sky.