You Are Everything You Love

you are everything you love--
the earth,
the children playing in the fields,
the rain,
the sun,
the river moving
below the thousand shades of green called spring.

you are the snow
sleeping against the soft shoulder
of the mountain,
the thousand flowers
beneath the vast ocean of sky.

without hope
give yourself completely
to every stranger,
without exception
in life,
in death,
in waking from the dream.

the first cry of birth,
the last breath,
the long nights in between
--you are everything you love.