The Way It Is

 The Way It Is

by

Lynn Unger

One morning you might wake up

to realize that the knot in your stomach 

had loosened itself and slipped away,

and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart

had gradually, and without your really noticing, 

been filled in - patched like a pothole, not quite

the same as it was, but good enough.

And in that moment it might occur to you 

that your life, though not the way

you planned it, and maybe not entirely 

the way you wanted it, is nonetheless -

persistently, abundantly, miraculously -

exactly what it is.

And that's the way it is, Sunday May 31, 2026!

 

Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby R. Wilson (Grayson Books, 2017), p. 31.