Eat the strawberry

What if we're here

precisely to suffer

to be broken

to learn how to bear it,

and how to move with it?

I'm not one to be soothed by some idea of salvation,
But what if tasting the strawberry on the brink of the precipice
is it?

Entire industries are built

on the avoidance of suffering

Everyone trying to sell you some thing, idea or dream

that will distract you,

for even a short a time,

from what you know and what you feel. 

What if we trusted heartbreak as a sign

that life is strong within us?

What if there's nothing better,

than what your life is
right now,
in all its messiness?

Would you still laugh?
Would your eyes still light up?
Would you still eat the strawberry?

Reach out to life and let it touch you.

(The strawberry is from a Buddhist story I read years ago, about a man hanging precariously on the side of a precipice, with a tiger above him and one below, who saw a strawberry near where he was, reached out, and ate it.)

Happy Groundhog Day!
Peace