Monday, December 10, 2012

Dwelling Place 4/17/78

Future shock
Being unable to cope with the present
Because it got here too fast
Future shock
Being unable to cope with the age passing

I am standing still, frozen
And my life spins out of control beneath my feet
The world is urging with great exhortations--
Quickly before it is too late!

But I don’t want to go that way
I want to flee
I want to escape the stampede

Head her off!

I have slipped.
I fight against the biting constraints
I struggle, trying to get free
But I am rounded up
Like a horse to a pen
Where we all mill in fear and confusion.

Where is my dwelling place?
What is this memory that plays so hauntingly
With subtle tones the beauty of our lost freedom?
There was a place for me
Before this.

Somewhere......      Before, or later, I cannot tell.

I journey through a great wide shadowed and sunnied wood;
Alone, afoot, or perhaps astride a horse,
Meeting or passing occasionally some lord or lady.
We greet one another. Although we are not acquainted there is no fear.

No fear.

Where is my homeland?
The exile in the mirror looks back at me
With eyes I have seen often
In the faces of orphans and women in war-torn villages.
We sit passive in rooms and mirror those eyes on film,
No less victims ourselves.

Where is my homeland?
Is it yet to be?
And the look of eagles?

In these last days, the earth,
Is it void of that place?
Has it been driven from this world?
Does it exist, then, only on the dark receding edge of the memory?
Or is it yet to be?

Jesus named demons and they fled from him.

Where did You dwell, Friend?
How long did you turn your attentions there
Before your prayers were answered?

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