Instructions for Feeding the Holy by David Anson Lee

 

Abhiram Prakash

Instructions for Feeding the Holy

Begin where you are. Do not wait for clarity. The holy is not persuaded by certainty; it listens for what trembles.

Step outside. Let the weather touch you. Watch how the sky keeps changing without apology. This is not a metaphor. It is a practice.

Feed the holy by tending what is small: washing a cup slowly, calling the name that has gone quiet, resting when the body asks instead of when permission arrives.

When grief comes, and it will, do not rush to improve it. Sit with it like a relative who has traveled far. Grief carries a language you may need later.

Remember: survival is not failure. Joy does not betray suffering. Caring for yourself is not retreat but a way of staying.

Feed the holy by choosing what steadies you when the noise swells. By practicing kindness even when it costs you speed or certainty. By lighting what light you can and letting it be enough.

This is not a cure.
It is a practice.
Some days, practice is enough.

© David Anson Lee

Enjoy more posts by David Anson Lee HERE.

David Anson Lee

David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and physician living in Texas. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he explores themes of healing, grief, resilience, and the sacred dimensions of ordinary life. His work has appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, Braided Way, Silver Birch Press, and numerous other journals.

Follow Feed the Holy

The Wolf I Feed at Dusk by David Anson Lee

 

L'oeil à deux Vanessa et cédric

The Wolf I Feed at Dusk

At dusk the day gathers its arguments:
sirens, headlines,
a neighbor’s anger
seeping through thin walls.

Inside me, the wolves circle.
One sharp-toothed, bright with outrage,
keeps a ledger of wrongs.
The other moves slowly,
ribs showing,
eyes worn smooth as river stone.

I carry food
without knowing it.
Every word chosen,
every silence kept,
every thought rehearsed
after dark
tilts the bowl.

Tonight, I feed the quieter one.
I give it wind in the trees,
my breath returning to itself,
the memory of a friend’s laugh
breaking a hard hour open.

The fierce wolf watches, offended,
but does not leave.
It never does.
Grief wants a mouth.

Still,
the gentler wolf lifts its head,
not victorious,
only alive,
and for a moment
the world feels less like a wound
and more like a place
I might still learn
to tend.

© David Anson Lee

Enjoy more posts by David Anson Lee HERE.

David Anson Lee

David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and physician living in Texas. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he explores themes of healing, grief, resilience, and the sacred dimensions of ordinary life. His work has appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, Braided Way, Silver Birch Press, and numerous other journals.

Follow Feed the Holy

What Grows after the Fire by David Anson Lee

 

Robin Heidrich

What Grows After the Fire

After the fire
the land does not hurry.
Char loosens its hold.
Ash becomes a language
the rain remembers.

In the blackened field
small verbs appear:
lift, split, insist;
green forcing its grammar
through ruin.

The old oak stands half-ghost:
one side burned to bone,
the other still working sap.
It has learned how to carry
silence and song
in the same body.

I walk there emptied
of answers.
Grief hums like heat
under the skin.
Some losses do not leave
when the smoke does.

Still, a bird returns
to the scorched fence,
sings into a morning
that asks for nothing.

This is how the holy feeds itself:
not by undoing the burn
but by letting life speak again
so quietly
you must kneel
to hear it.

© David Anson Lee

Enjoy more posts by David Anson Lee HERE.

David Anson Lee

David Anson Lee is a poet, philosopher, and physician living in Texas. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he explores themes of healing, grief, resilience, and the sacred dimensions of ordinary life. His work has appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, Braided Way, Silver Birch Press, and numerous other journals.

Follow Feed the Holy