Christopher M. Swan Poet Free verse

Morning Meditation

Just as light moves through darkness,
Not the other way around,
So health moves through my mind
Into every region of my body.

Just as blood reaches my limbs,
Nourishing and refreshing tissues,
So enlightened thought travels
Into every molecule of my self.

Just as dawn arrives each morning,
Not because I travel to it,
But because the earth I inhabit
Has turned beneath me while I slept,

So freedom comes rising in my limbs,
Lifting cell by cell the power of life
Into the full shining radiance of love
Given to me again each morning.

Just as the universe of dark emptiness
embodies regions where light travels
Undeterred, so among the atoms
Of my body freedom flows,

Releasing energies unimaginable to me
But ever-present in the makeup
Of my boundless mind ... itself
Made up of universes undiscovered.

Now I see what never occurred to me,
Fields of light effortlessly reaching
Everywhere I have feelings, everywhere
I can consider who I am.

Now the morning rises in my body
And my self: my mind yields up
The light and wisdom that I give
To myself and every creature.

I am not the slave of feelings,
Nor the instrument of pain:
Divinity plays all my stops and strings
With melodies heard everywhere I go.

I am not suffering. Suffering is itself,
A thing apart, a dream, however real it seem,
Still a dream from which I waken,
Because I am the new morning

Of my every upspringing thought,
Upsurging yet serene, to which darkness
Must yield, before which, pain must fly,
Leaving me untouched, unconfused, unfazed,

Remembering only who I always was:
The image and the likeness of that light
That brought me here so that everyone might
Clearly see what and who they always are. 

Christopher M. Swan 2009

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Alison A Smith September 4, 2026 at 5:03 PM A luminous, prayer-like free verse meditation that builds its healing vision through expansive natural and cosmic analogies. The repeated “Just as” and “Now” passages create a calm, incantatory rhythm, while the movement from dawn and blood to atoms, universes, and divinity gives the poem a powerful sense of spiritual scale. Its final affirmation feels both deeply personal and generously inclusive.