I am so weary
Fatigued past health, beyond comprehension.
New life is joining my system
And the initial contact has sickened me.
All the ways of the world uncovered
For me have been at war;
We couriers of life, hard-pressed
Until even life seems but little.
I watch as this great matter flows on, like a river
Being touched and learning I mustn’t grasp
Being immersed but learning I mustn’t drown
The concerns of the Spirit, ever brooding the hatch,
Biding time, lingering
And probing into those who rejoice in it,
Seeking couriers through whom to work
And hearts in which to dwell
Who will redeem the time for us
When the days are so evil?
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Visions 1972-73 1989-90
I have stumbled upon a portal, and I have engaged a dialog in visions, with the One who has promised to answer if I am brave enough to ask. If the dream has faded, the visions have more than compensated...but because of the veil, it is hard.
I can only put my hand on my mouth and shake my head, because of what I hear. It is hard, this word, and I must view it through a bloody lense. One spoke first.
“For whom do you these things? Answer.”
“I suppose for Love. For Truth. Because of the silence.”
“Arise, then, Ghost House, open your eyes and consider Me.”
Then, I heard the paradox of life in the world.
“My children have stumbled, but I lifted them. They have returned to serve those who hate them, for love of Me, and it is a great tribute. My servants fear Me this much, but they are valued as nothing in this world, suffering the dilemmas of women stripped. They are humiliated before their foes, confounded by the rift. But I hover over them, waiting for the right time. Do you understand?”
Purposes beyond my comprehension rainbow through the mind’s eye. I behold them, resplendent and unassailable, like spiraled galaxies, like the structure of the universe. How has the rift managed to disguise this? One spoke again.
“I have moved unnoticed through the Great City of Victory. I have seen fatness, idleness, gross waste, and much worse; age after age the corruptions of the solitary souls. I see through all flesh. Are you not all orphans, running naked? Screaming in the streets before bladed warriors? Huddling near burning huts and smoking fields as the shreds of your lives are trampled under iron shoes? Do you see this? Can you discern? I will level you all.”
And then I see.
The visions of a thousand dreamless nights
Rear and spin over the veils of this Oppressing City,
And as I sit at meat,
I see the slaughtered in the rice paddies.
You delicate and tinged with paint, weary of jewelry and attentions!
Here! Here is one who flies at you with death in her eyes!
I open my eyes and consider her.
She is homeless in a land of oppression.
I see the dread.
The war is everywhere through me.
Who is my husband, in this bloody land?
Who will pity my life, to spare me when the whole womb is so polluted?
I identify this castaway.
She serves in silence and confinement.
She suffers defilement for the sake of a promise that she does not comprehend. As I live,
The One called God is behind this.
She will yet live in her place, but now the war rages and she flees.
He said, “Their roaring drains my desire for these people.
My virtue threatens them.
They refuse me, but flatter here and curse later.
How can I approach?
I must keep ahead of them, out of sight.”
She said, “Do not leave me here, my guide!”
I grip the alter.
My slayer grips his hilt.
Eternity
Open your eyes, Little One. Do you not understand?
I know of a certain one
Learning, and finding power
Yet being still young, and a captive, such a one hesitates, and moans.
“The sign is to follow. I will be ahead of you.”
I can only put my hand on my mouth and shake my head, because of what I hear. It is hard, this word, and I must view it through a bloody lense. One spoke first.
“For whom do you these things? Answer.”
“I suppose for Love. For Truth. Because of the silence.”
“Arise, then, Ghost House, open your eyes and consider Me.”
Then, I heard the paradox of life in the world.
“My children have stumbled, but I lifted them. They have returned to serve those who hate them, for love of Me, and it is a great tribute. My servants fear Me this much, but they are valued as nothing in this world, suffering the dilemmas of women stripped. They are humiliated before their foes, confounded by the rift. But I hover over them, waiting for the right time. Do you understand?”
Purposes beyond my comprehension rainbow through the mind’s eye. I behold them, resplendent and unassailable, like spiraled galaxies, like the structure of the universe. How has the rift managed to disguise this? One spoke again.
“I have moved unnoticed through the Great City of Victory. I have seen fatness, idleness, gross waste, and much worse; age after age the corruptions of the solitary souls. I see through all flesh. Are you not all orphans, running naked? Screaming in the streets before bladed warriors? Huddling near burning huts and smoking fields as the shreds of your lives are trampled under iron shoes? Do you see this? Can you discern? I will level you all.”
And then I see.
The visions of a thousand dreamless nights
Rear and spin over the veils of this Oppressing City,
And as I sit at meat,
I see the slaughtered in the rice paddies.
You delicate and tinged with paint, weary of jewelry and attentions!
Here! Here is one who flies at you with death in her eyes!
I open my eyes and consider her.
She is homeless in a land of oppression.
I see the dread.
The war is everywhere through me.
Who is my husband, in this bloody land?
Who will pity my life, to spare me when the whole womb is so polluted?
I identify this castaway.
She serves in silence and confinement.
She suffers defilement for the sake of a promise that she does not comprehend. As I live,
The One called God is behind this.
She will yet live in her place, but now the war rages and she flees.
He said, “Their roaring drains my desire for these people.
My virtue threatens them.
They refuse me, but flatter here and curse later.
How can I approach?
I must keep ahead of them, out of sight.”
She said, “Do not leave me here, my guide!”
I grip the alter.
My slayer grips his hilt.
Eternity
Open your eyes, Little One. Do you not understand?
I know of a certain one
Learning, and finding power
Yet being still young, and a captive, such a one hesitates, and moans.
“The sign is to follow. I will be ahead of you.”
The Prisoner ca 1973
Man is his own stage indeeed
The scene is all inside
At war within, and eternal war engulfs him.
Lost in his own scheme,
He is thrust into chaos
To act out his part in slow stages of death and hell
Trudging on with his orders
With no strength to voice his disorientation.
As I realize this doom, I seek God
Where else can we go?
The scene is all inside
At war within, and eternal war engulfs him.
Lost in his own scheme,
He is thrust into chaos
To act out his part in slow stages of death and hell
Trudging on with his orders
With no strength to voice his disorientation.
As I realize this doom, I seek God
Where else can we go?
Security 1973
What is it?
Is it worn like a necklace or written down in binders?
Is it locked in a safe place?
What have we at all that is secure but immaterial things?
Layer upon layer
Cloak upon cloak
All costume and display, only to hide the vulnerable
And to clothe the naked
Yet some folks stake all their security
On the relative size of their closets,
And have little faith even in the flesh and blood
And even that
Is a robe that will be folded and put away.
Is it worn like a necklace or written down in binders?
Is it locked in a safe place?
What have we at all that is secure but immaterial things?
Layer upon layer
Cloak upon cloak
All costume and display, only to hide the vulnerable
And to clothe the naked
Yet some folks stake all their security
On the relative size of their closets,
And have little faith even in the flesh and blood
And even that
Is a robe that will be folded and put away.
Relativity ca 1972-73
You who have so many more years’ weight of time
And the benefit of experience and bestowed inheritance
You are hardly more prepared to face life than I am!
Yet all these years march between us,
And it is your noble privilege;
And my pauper’s lot.
We packed the car and drove to the shore to visit the relatives.
It was long and enervating, and I was confronted with the chasm:
It stands between the poverty of youth, and old riches.
How curious are the trappings of affluence
Subtle veils of cultural illusion petrified into mechanical rituals
And social patterns of acceptable behavior.
The house was like a great archive, or crypt;
A museum of objects of very little service
Wealth was the displayable credit.
I love my shack, permeable as it is.
My floors are covered with the trails of the day’s excursions
Spider webs glisten in the slant of sun.
I sit at table and listen to morning rising from a thousand throats
Watching the kaleidoscope of new light
Playing its virtue out over the hungry land.
I guess it is worth a little while to sit in pillowed luxury
On top of pile carpets, breathing centrally controlled air
Listening to the manias of over-refined entertainment
And carefully scripted media
It makes poverty so renewing.
Why don’t you come over some night?
I’ll open my hope chest
And show you my diamonds, flung out across the cold black sky.
Answer the Question 1972
There is only one answer.
My purpose is life.
The world has a teaching:
Evolution.
Evolution implies superior direction.
But the stigma of man is lust for blood--
The shot of the rifle; the scream of defiance
The groan of surrender...
We strive
This is the conflict of life with the idol of the past.
We strive, and evolution remains an epitaph of the past
Ours, the revolutions
And who can say whether we progress age by age
Or merely recycle the same old sins
But Life is created purpose enough.
Where there was no seam, one appears as if by magic
It is the mysterious prerogative
The world cracks, and out flows, rainbowed and patterned
Enveloping
The embryonic purpose, fulfilling its part
While the old world falls empty
To lie broken in the grass
Purpose and Life, so.
And we strive with the teaching of the world
Because we remain a mystery.
The day one dies, then, and the day of one’s birth
Mysteriously happy and sad...
Momentous both, to be born to life
To be dead to the world.
My purpose is life.
The world has a teaching:
Evolution.
Evolution implies superior direction.
But the stigma of man is lust for blood--
The shot of the rifle; the scream of defiance
The groan of surrender...
We strive
This is the conflict of life with the idol of the past.
We strive, and evolution remains an epitaph of the past
Ours, the revolutions
And who can say whether we progress age by age
Or merely recycle the same old sins
But Life is created purpose enough.
Where there was no seam, one appears as if by magic
It is the mysterious prerogative
The world cracks, and out flows, rainbowed and patterned
Enveloping
The embryonic purpose, fulfilling its part
While the old world falls empty
To lie broken in the grass
Purpose and Life, so.
And we strive with the teaching of the world
Because we remain a mystery.
The day one dies, then, and the day of one’s birth
Mysteriously happy and sad...
Momentous both, to be born to life
To be dead to the world.
Ghost Houses 1972-92
Well, then, perhaps being born was the only viable solution. Nonetheless, it is fraught with its own perils. For one, life takes so long.
The long sweep of childhood and growing up is a journey into tedium. Day after day, they leave their wearing marks. Gradually, though, it became clear that I was being guided from somewhere. This guiding force was also chastising me, purging me. I have been aware of this quiet presence from very early on. It was with me wherever I went, denying me privacy, causing me to feel keenly my insignificance. Here I was, sitting in front of this invisible guide, living like a jerk in plain sight. The desire to do the right thing began to burn early.
But growing up is also a lesson in deception. You know, you have innocence as a child, and then when you grow up, you find the thing which is so respectable in the eyes of the Family and Society is turning you into the thing you blamelessly despised as a child. I strayed from the respectable pursuits and began a re-evaluation of my goals. The rift was still there, and unhealed, for all my growing up and being lulled by the long sweep of time. Now I felt severed from the throng. This old conflict reared up, plaguing me ceaselessly. Change. Reconsider. Repent of this. So I packed and left school for the California coast.
I didn’t find what I was looking for. There was great beauty, but with it, I carried shut up disappointment like a sleeping bag. I disguised my grief in incomprehensible poems and found I couldn’t deal with a steadily rising specter of unfulfilled, deep-seated needs and callings. God, emotions are unquenchable. Maya is an illusion, you know. Emotions are very real.
Well. Now home was gone. I had left home, and in a sense, home had folded up and left without me. I couldn’t go back...Now there was no home I could find, anywhere. Home was some haven, a fairy tale. Home was somewhere tucked deep inside my soul, and my handicap was that I could only look out; the entryway to my soul was shuttered up tight. How sacred then, is silence. Sometimes the deep seat of despair has no other course.
But this guide didn’t give up. It was as if another eye was hiding behind the veil of my face, recognizing old names and kindred spirit, and churning the pool of life, bringing the heirlooms of the deep just into sight. You can’t just give up when you can see the heirlooms. You have to keep trying to throw off the adversary, the long sweep of tedium and deception.
There is waiting, now. I wait. Evidently I will endure waiting all my life. I see now that to live is to endure.. Isn’t it true? You struggle to be true to those ideals that were obvious to you as a child, if you are lucky enough to remember them and be disgusted with what you have become in the meantime. There are heirlooms, but they are kept for you, safe, out of reach. There is a kindred spirit, but he is ahead, beyond sight. There is peace, and somewhere, there is a place called Home, but as yet, the foundations have not been carved in the heart deep enough to build them on, and I wander through ghost houses which are pale in the light.
The long sweep of childhood and growing up is a journey into tedium. Day after day, they leave their wearing marks. Gradually, though, it became clear that I was being guided from somewhere. This guiding force was also chastising me, purging me. I have been aware of this quiet presence from very early on. It was with me wherever I went, denying me privacy, causing me to feel keenly my insignificance. Here I was, sitting in front of this invisible guide, living like a jerk in plain sight. The desire to do the right thing began to burn early.
But growing up is also a lesson in deception. You know, you have innocence as a child, and then when you grow up, you find the thing which is so respectable in the eyes of the Family and Society is turning you into the thing you blamelessly despised as a child. I strayed from the respectable pursuits and began a re-evaluation of my goals. The rift was still there, and unhealed, for all my growing up and being lulled by the long sweep of time. Now I felt severed from the throng. This old conflict reared up, plaguing me ceaselessly. Change. Reconsider. Repent of this. So I packed and left school for the California coast.
I didn’t find what I was looking for. There was great beauty, but with it, I carried shut up disappointment like a sleeping bag. I disguised my grief in incomprehensible poems and found I couldn’t deal with a steadily rising specter of unfulfilled, deep-seated needs and callings. God, emotions are unquenchable. Maya is an illusion, you know. Emotions are very real.
Well. Now home was gone. I had left home, and in a sense, home had folded up and left without me. I couldn’t go back...Now there was no home I could find, anywhere. Home was some haven, a fairy tale. Home was somewhere tucked deep inside my soul, and my handicap was that I could only look out; the entryway to my soul was shuttered up tight. How sacred then, is silence. Sometimes the deep seat of despair has no other course.
But this guide didn’t give up. It was as if another eye was hiding behind the veil of my face, recognizing old names and kindred spirit, and churning the pool of life, bringing the heirlooms of the deep just into sight. You can’t just give up when you can see the heirlooms. You have to keep trying to throw off the adversary, the long sweep of tedium and deception.
There is waiting, now. I wait. Evidently I will endure waiting all my life. I see now that to live is to endure.. Isn’t it true? You struggle to be true to those ideals that were obvious to you as a child, if you are lucky enough to remember them and be disgusted with what you have become in the meantime. There are heirlooms, but they are kept for you, safe, out of reach. There is a kindred spirit, but he is ahead, beyond sight. There is peace, and somewhere, there is a place called Home, but as yet, the foundations have not been carved in the heart deep enough to build them on, and I wander through ghost houses which are pale in the light.
Stress Colic 1973-1990
I have turned on myself, lately. These last several days, despair is brooding over me, forbidding me constructive action, and I space in silence, fretting in solitary. I feel foolish and ashamed, and have little love or patience toward those who I suppose mean the most to me. I think about leaving. Why have you forsaken me? Where have you flown to?
These past nights my dreams...night dreams are alarming: separation and travel over great distances, such as I am familiar with since childhood, when house and yard and woods and friends are exchanged for the unfamiliar. And for the child, whose happiness begins rooting in the stability of the home, this is a great trial, even when it turns out well. Home is jumbled, its map’s continuity becomes tattered and confusing. The parents: unfathomable. And if the parents are so, then how unstable is the heart of the child!
And each time the stability shatters, and the child is shaken out of its niche, everything must be started anew. A horrifying emptiness yawns open, and fear flies in, because the path back is obliterated. Friends cannot be kept. I have no home. Someone else will fill my place in your heart. Someone else will fill your place in mine. It’s all expendible.
To grow up firm in one place, in a family priding like lions, with a range of constant friends over a frame of years, does this give independence and lack of fear? Does it ensure a trustworthy reading of the map? Or can we none of us go back?
My life has been moving forever, folding up and moving, leaving things behind. Sometimes I settle and rest, and have the necessities, but all with the understanding of how temporal it all is. Eventually, it will all be revoked, and I will leave again, as empty as I came. So I learned how to be deficient; to set myself apart. It became my way; a sort of protective torture. I have became a stranger. My torture is a fear of myself, because I am lost. I have no sense of direction. I can neither go back to the things that were meaningful, nor go ahead, toward what might be hope.
Yet, as I learn, I find that all I thought would have made the difference for me can only be realized within, sometime. My strength will be measured in my ability to re-form, to chart the map from the center of the heart. It is life struggling upstream against the wounded past. And in spite of my brooding, I do want to live. In spite of the bad dreams of eternal separations, I still struggle to cut a trail and leave marks. How can I stop? I must find the way home.
These past nights my dreams...night dreams are alarming: separation and travel over great distances, such as I am familiar with since childhood, when house and yard and woods and friends are exchanged for the unfamiliar. And for the child, whose happiness begins rooting in the stability of the home, this is a great trial, even when it turns out well. Home is jumbled, its map’s continuity becomes tattered and confusing. The parents: unfathomable. And if the parents are so, then how unstable is the heart of the child!
And each time the stability shatters, and the child is shaken out of its niche, everything must be started anew. A horrifying emptiness yawns open, and fear flies in, because the path back is obliterated. Friends cannot be kept. I have no home. Someone else will fill my place in your heart. Someone else will fill your place in mine. It’s all expendible.
To grow up firm in one place, in a family priding like lions, with a range of constant friends over a frame of years, does this give independence and lack of fear? Does it ensure a trustworthy reading of the map? Or can we none of us go back?
My life has been moving forever, folding up and moving, leaving things behind. Sometimes I settle and rest, and have the necessities, but all with the understanding of how temporal it all is. Eventually, it will all be revoked, and I will leave again, as empty as I came. So I learned how to be deficient; to set myself apart. It became my way; a sort of protective torture. I have became a stranger. My torture is a fear of myself, because I am lost. I have no sense of direction. I can neither go back to the things that were meaningful, nor go ahead, toward what might be hope.
Yet, as I learn, I find that all I thought would have made the difference for me can only be realized within, sometime. My strength will be measured in my ability to re-form, to chart the map from the center of the heart. It is life struggling upstream against the wounded past. And in spite of my brooding, I do want to live. In spite of the bad dreams of eternal separations, I still struggle to cut a trail and leave marks. How can I stop? I must find the way home.
Where Was The Keeper Of The Peace? 1971-1989
Look, you, I have no more stomach for brawlers!
Don’t be so stupid!
If the bitch barks, back off! Get down!
Offer your palm, not your knuckles
If you strike, she will bite.
I know you didn’t want to hurt me,
But you don’t seem to want me laughing either.
Isn’t it old?
We’ve seen too much active duty
Too many encounters
And how many are left dangling in our dark heart of hearts?
How do you ever make up for that?
We were all pretty liars
We thought we knew what we wanted
We enlisted and then we just went through maneuvers
And never recognized each other
As friend or foe.
It’s too bad.
You find yourself on the front lines,
Armed, and bloodied
And then, after you’re dragged off,
And your heart is in mortal peril,
The shock sets in
Your soul begins to fossilize
Where is the life, then?
Darling, pay attention.
Heed who you engage.
Who do you love?
Who do you bury?
Who do you mourn?
Don’t be so stupid!
If the bitch barks, back off! Get down!
Offer your palm, not your knuckles
If you strike, she will bite.
I know you didn’t want to hurt me,
But you don’t seem to want me laughing either.
Isn’t it old?
We’ve seen too much active duty
Too many encounters
And how many are left dangling in our dark heart of hearts?
How do you ever make up for that?
We were all pretty liars
We thought we knew what we wanted
We enlisted and then we just went through maneuvers
And never recognized each other
As friend or foe.
It’s too bad.
You find yourself on the front lines,
Armed, and bloodied
And then, after you’re dragged off,
And your heart is in mortal peril,
The shock sets in
Your soul begins to fossilize
Where is the life, then?
Darling, pay attention.
Heed who you engage.
Who do you love?
Who do you bury?
Who do you mourn?
Sanctuary
The spirit of my ancestors tended the land of a Sanctuary.
It is my birthright as well,
but we are born prisoners of the Reservations.
So I am praying for escape.
An exile nation praying begs we succeed
The prayers of captives leak through the barriers
Using language yet too simple to suspect
Whispers...pictures...old songs...
Free us
Return us.
Let us return to the Sanctuary.
We prisoners dream.
From my youth, I have fled to you, for you comfort me.
I trailed upon your borders, where my dream becomes real.
Soon the soft cloak and silver eyes of night
Will give me leave to scout and forage
On the borders of the Sanctuary
So I balance Agony and Bliss, as best an exile can
I guard the memory of a heritage
Like a candle in the wind.
Blessed will I be
When my birthright is restored; when I may come and go
Free of all separations;
When the land, and I, and thee, are one.
It is my birthright as well,
but we are born prisoners of the Reservations.
So I am praying for escape.
An exile nation praying begs we succeed
The prayers of captives leak through the barriers
Using language yet too simple to suspect
Whispers...pictures...old songs...
Free us
Return us.
Let us return to the Sanctuary.
We prisoners dream.
From my youth, I have fled to you, for you comfort me.
I trailed upon your borders, where my dream becomes real.
Soon the soft cloak and silver eyes of night
Will give me leave to scout and forage
On the borders of the Sanctuary
So I balance Agony and Bliss, as best an exile can
I guard the memory of a heritage
Like a candle in the wind.
Blessed will I be
When my birthright is restored; when I may come and go
Free of all separations;
When the land, and I, and thee, are one.
Being of Light
If only I could stay with thee!
Then I could no more lament
There is no kiss as sweet
As the brush of thy face
Against the lashes of my dreams
Then I could no more lament
There is no kiss as sweet
As the brush of thy face
Against the lashes of my dreams
Antagonizing 1971-75
Me and you, swaying between two points
There is no static middle
Me and you
My antagonist
My playmate
You like to fight
And then you muddy the water to hide your escape
And I am left with your inky despair.
If only I could win you!
I retreat.
I am so tired, waiting for this moult, and the next stage.
Why do you toy with me?
Why won’t you tell me?
We are only asking to find out if we are real...
You and I, swaying between two points
With no static middle.
These dualities will resolve in time.
I choose time to test through.
Chance settles into discipline
Discipline into reliance
And knowledge into trust
And that, into the undergirding Love
***********
It takes a meditative retreat
You take a long hibernation; a hermit’s fast
Which is the purge to redeem the habitat.
There is no static middle
Me and you
My antagonist
My playmate
You like to fight
And then you muddy the water to hide your escape
And I am left with your inky despair.
If only I could win you!
I retreat.
I am so tired, waiting for this moult, and the next stage.
Why do you toy with me?
Why won’t you tell me?
We are only asking to find out if we are real...
You and I, swaying between two points
With no static middle.
These dualities will resolve in time.
I choose time to test through.
Chance settles into discipline
Discipline into reliance
And knowledge into trust
And that, into the undergirding Love
***********
It takes a meditative retreat
You take a long hibernation; a hermit’s fast
Which is the purge to redeem the habitat.
Taking It To The Limit 1970-1990
Sacrifice comes from the desire to purify
My mind made up,
I began quickly,
Cleaning with a determination.
I tore up my art and crumpled my poems
And set all curling into fiery tongues
And scrolls of carbon and thin black smoke.
When the ashes fell,
I felt the great burden released
I was cut loose from the crafted thing.
Regret might come later,
But now I reassured myself
It was only a material thing
A contrivance,
Clumsy encasements for an essence that has no form.
After a while the nature of this essence spoke up
And I spent a long time absorbing the insights.
Why did you throw so much away?
Do you detest yourself?
What good to make and destroy with no mercy?
Does this essence really have no form?
Perhaps my desire had no heart.
Perhaps purity lies in love,
And sacrifice, then, is obedience to generosity.
My mind made up,
I began quickly,
Cleaning with a determination.
I tore up my art and crumpled my poems
And set all curling into fiery tongues
And scrolls of carbon and thin black smoke.
When the ashes fell,
I felt the great burden released
I was cut loose from the crafted thing.
Regret might come later,
But now I reassured myself
It was only a material thing
A contrivance,
Clumsy encasements for an essence that has no form.
After a while the nature of this essence spoke up
And I spent a long time absorbing the insights.
Why did you throw so much away?
Do you detest yourself?
What good to make and destroy with no mercy?
Does this essence really have no form?
Perhaps my desire had no heart.
Perhaps purity lies in love,
And sacrifice, then, is obedience to generosity.
Sunday’s Trials ca 1971
Sitting here waiting for the sunrise
Wringing my face
Wiping my eyes
The first thing is sorrow
The second thing is pain
Child, you’ll just have to try it again
Sitting here waiting for the sunrise
Wringing my worries
Wiping my eyes
The first thing is sorry
The second thing is hurt
Child, I’m on my way
Child of mine,
Be waiting for me
Rest your head
Close your eyes
Patience has its virtue wrapped around you
Love has thrown its heart into your cries
Wringing my face
Wiping my eyes
The first thing is sorrow
The second thing is pain
Child, you’ll just have to try it again
Sitting here waiting for the sunrise
Wringing my worries
Wiping my eyes
The first thing is sorry
The second thing is hurt
Child, I’m on my way
Child of mine,
Be waiting for me
Rest your head
Close your eyes
Patience has its virtue wrapped around you
Love has thrown its heart into your cries
The Scout ca 1970-77
The Scout is keeping well ahead of me
Leading the way.
He watches me, and my trust must remain in him.
Privations surround me--I am in the wilds
And but for him who is out of my sight
I am alone.
The days pass, and dreaming endures sleeping.
Still, quiet mornings whisper of the coming light.
I rise from the deep wells of sleep
To the pearly treasure of air.
Something greater cradled me there in the deep well.
Now it is gone so quietly I hardly perceive that soft step
Though I trail after it,
Like a suckling trailing after the memory of kindness
I erase my camp
And wait for morning to break
Too early, now, but it will come.
Leading the way.
He watches me, and my trust must remain in him.
Privations surround me--I am in the wilds
And but for him who is out of my sight
I am alone.
The days pass, and dreaming endures sleeping.
Still, quiet mornings whisper of the coming light.
I rise from the deep wells of sleep
To the pearly treasure of air.
Something greater cradled me there in the deep well.
Now it is gone so quietly I hardly perceive that soft step
Though I trail after it,
Like a suckling trailing after the memory of kindness
I erase my camp
And wait for morning to break
Too early, now, but it will come.
Leaving the Nest 1971
There are those who disallow me
But their ways are not mine, and
I cannot stay any longer under this roof
Of anger and humiliation.
We children of the disillusioned grow up orphans:
Mired in shock,
Swallowing poisons dry-eyed.
We live on a most subtle distress
We grow up on baby aspirin.
Now
Out of a rock
I must carve a beating heart
I have a sledge and heavy chisel
To free the fragile core of love
I take up this task against the stone.
I leave home.
My lure has flown far out of sight
And I beat my fledgling wings until I am borne aloft
After its soaring trail.
Where are you?
Faith must be steadfast
Love must be faith in the midst of confusion
Love’s healing must be a subtle thing...
Someday I will catch up to it, but now my lure shoots ahead
Like an arrow laughing for the strength of the bow.
But their ways are not mine, and
I cannot stay any longer under this roof
Of anger and humiliation.
We children of the disillusioned grow up orphans:
Mired in shock,
Swallowing poisons dry-eyed.
We live on a most subtle distress
We grow up on baby aspirin.
Now
Out of a rock
I must carve a beating heart
I have a sledge and heavy chisel
To free the fragile core of love
I take up this task against the stone.
I leave home.
My lure has flown far out of sight
And I beat my fledgling wings until I am borne aloft
After its soaring trail.
Where are you?
Faith must be steadfast
Love must be faith in the midst of confusion
Love’s healing must be a subtle thing...
Someday I will catch up to it, but now my lure shoots ahead
Like an arrow laughing for the strength of the bow.
Social Detente 1971
Well, I can’t play my gitar ‘cause everyone can hear
I play too close to home
And everyone can hear
They’re tapping their feet
But not to the beat
Oh, cut my hair, or bust my gitar
I’d like to sing right out
But I play too close to home
And staying at home is like running away:
You can’t write that down!
Some folks shut out the truth like a stray cat.
I play too close to home
And everyone can hear
They’re tapping their feet
But not to the beat
Oh, cut my hair, or bust my gitar
I’d like to sing right out
But I play too close to home
And staying at home is like running away:
You can’t write that down!
Some folks shut out the truth like a stray cat.
Where Am I Sleeping? 1970/1982
My life has turned into a hard sleep
And the sleep into work
And this unconscious reality into an endless theater of short stories
Which I ad lib,
Relying on the certainty that I will reach the end
Comic, or tragic.
The more I learn
The merrier I laugh
The harder I cry.
The direction of my heart against the direction of my compromises
Is tensile.
I compress.
Am I sleeping?
Is this a machine?
And the sleep into work
And this unconscious reality into an endless theater of short stories
Which I ad lib,
Relying on the certainty that I will reach the end
Comic, or tragic.
The more I learn
The merrier I laugh
The harder I cry.
The direction of my heart against the direction of my compromises
Is tensile.
I compress.
Am I sleeping?
Is this a machine?
Rebuffing the Suitor 1971
I cut my hair.
My casual suitor had warned me not to
As if cutting it was an unpardonable transgression
A regression from womanhood
Back into some vague condition akin to eunuch
The hair was my obligation
As temptress.
But it was a sacrifice I felt bidden to commit
Bidden to shed this convenient disguise
For I am not a temptress at all
Just a girl.
When he came and saw it
There was silence.
In the end, I left and he did not try to stop me.
A great weight fell from me when I shed that long hair
Now I was starting fresh again
I could ripen slowly
Tomboy again
Safe
In a good position to observe
Beauty takes time to mature
It has nothing to do with hair.
My casual suitor had warned me not to
As if cutting it was an unpardonable transgression
A regression from womanhood
Back into some vague condition akin to eunuch
The hair was my obligation
As temptress.
But it was a sacrifice I felt bidden to commit
Bidden to shed this convenient disguise
For I am not a temptress at all
Just a girl.
When he came and saw it
There was silence.
In the end, I left and he did not try to stop me.
A great weight fell from me when I shed that long hair
Now I was starting fresh again
I could ripen slowly
Tomboy again
Safe
In a good position to observe
Beauty takes time to mature
It has nothing to do with hair.
The Grass Path ca 1970
Hundreds of times have I walked this grass path.
At sunset, when all things are caught in a golden, rosey glow
I come wistfully, aching for release:
To be released into the great clouds
Or the haying odor of the fields
Or the comfort of the rustling grasses....
This field, stretching out hilly views and summer vibrance
Is my eucharist
A necklace is strung in the grass
Flashing threads and colors, a fine spider web
So many shy away from its thoughtful grace
Or sweep it away so casually
The burden of this casual destruction snares me
And I am trapped, so weary with casualty, on the grass path.
A spider swings up from hiding, oblivious to my inertia
Testing threads, spinning magic
Spider survival, living out spider’s gift with spider’s grace
Casualty is not his, after all.
My burden of weariness I softly lay aside.
At sunset, when all things are caught in a golden, rosey glow
I come wistfully, aching for release:
To be released into the great clouds
Or the haying odor of the fields
Or the comfort of the rustling grasses....
This field, stretching out hilly views and summer vibrance
Is my eucharist
A necklace is strung in the grass
Flashing threads and colors, a fine spider web
So many shy away from its thoughtful grace
Or sweep it away so casually
The burden of this casual destruction snares me
And I am trapped, so weary with casualty, on the grass path.
A spider swings up from hiding, oblivious to my inertia
Testing threads, spinning magic
Spider survival, living out spider’s gift with spider’s grace
Casualty is not his, after all.
My burden of weariness I softly lay aside.
Heart to Heart 1970
Remember?
You are mine.
Don’t you know I have grieved too, over your hurts?
I cannot fail to grieve over your scars.
If I could lend you my own blood: The strength of my bones
I will so robe thee
But it is work,
So have patience.
You will be free
You will be free
The last cell will be swept clean
And the last lonely exile healed of his crime
And punishment.
Remember?
Be mine.
You are mine.
Don’t you know I have grieved too, over your hurts?
I cannot fail to grieve over your scars.
If I could lend you my own blood: The strength of my bones
I will so robe thee
But it is work,
So have patience.
You will be free
You will be free
The last cell will be swept clean
And the last lonely exile healed of his crime
And punishment.
Remember?
Be mine.
Persuasion 1969-89
A choice is here, in the making:
The gentle persuasion of life.
Last year’s grass has been burned off
And seed builds in the ruins
Rooting in the ash of last year’s grass
To send up for the light.
A Gentle Persuader is walking me home.
I ramble around him by the water’s edge
Watching its ripples spread the golden trees over the silky water surface
He found me, where I languished
And led me to sunlight and sweet grass
When I fled, he was my retreat
When I was lost, he became a wilderness path
He is light in my darkness
The rain penetrating my husk
Like a seed that roots in ruin and follows the sun
I will follow him.
The gentle persuasion of life.
Last year’s grass has been burned off
And seed builds in the ruins
Rooting in the ash of last year’s grass
To send up for the light.
A Gentle Persuader is walking me home.
I ramble around him by the water’s edge
Watching its ripples spread the golden trees over the silky water surface
He found me, where I languished
And led me to sunlight and sweet grass
When I fled, he was my retreat
When I was lost, he became a wilderness path
He is light in my darkness
The rain penetrating my husk
Like a seed that roots in ruin and follows the sun
I will follow him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)