Zone

Why all this need to get out
of your comfort zone?
That’s impossible.
The whole cosmos is a comfort zone.
Stars and planets never veer
from their orbits and spheres.
Yet they’re not complacent about it.
They tremble through a continuum
of ecstasy, ever-amazed
that they don’t collide.
The daffodil returns to its seed,
only to sprout again, content
in bulb, leaf, or blossom,
never complaining,
“I’m too comfortable here!”
We humans are the only whiners
in the universe,
which to all other creatures
is a constant ceremony of intoxication,
ever-recurring yet never the same.
Galaxies, flowers, electrons,
even panthers dance in their zone.
Why doesn’t your body remember
that comfort of the wild,
ambling down its atavistic path,
easy in fang, feral in pleasure?
The only thing in heaven and earth
that isn’t comfortable
is your mind.
Don’t expand your comfort zone.
Expand your awareness.
Then you’ll comprehend
how full of miracles is one
square inch of black loam,
the adventure of Being
right where you are.
How you’re always hanging
without a rope over the cliff
of this moment, about to drop
a thousand feet into
another Now.
Don’t worry.
You’re caught and kept.
The Comforter enfolds you.

by Alfred K. Lamotte