Seeker Magazine

It's As If

by ShaunDarius Gottlieb

I suppose
We all want a little magic and mystery
To slide through our fingers like rain
On a sunny day when the light is so beautiful
It was as if you could take a spoon
And lick it off the roof of the sky
Dribbling down your chin

I suppose
We all want lives that aren't ordinary
Drab and predictable,
Lives where colors are so vividly iridescent

It's as if you can wash your soul in them
And possibly your mind
To emerge from a Whirlpool Galaxy of your emotions
As uncluttered and uncomplicated
As the first day you were born

I suppose
We all want to act from a place of total beingness
And for one shining moment of disbelief
Suspend the cynicism where we had compromised
Beyond the meshing armor of ten-thousand little crimes
I suppose
You will ask me
Where this miracle appears

That in fifth gear we can shift so suddenly,
We're no longer driving the same groovy road
Cut into our promises
Etched on a moonlight beach and washed by a tide of blood

You're going to protest that life isn't this intense
Isn't this dramatic, isn't the dance of the fates
Hang-gliding on a cliff of chances
By the breath of your integrity and mind sky
Of everything you've ever believed

And I suppose that, for you, it's true . . .

You're not a singular comet streaming in the bloodstream of space
You're not a dazzling jewel mounted beyond comprehension
In the apple of God's eye

You're not an absolutely remarkable miracle that can give back
And surrender to an invincible inevitability,
That unless you change, right now, and venture
To a place you've withheld these many years,
A state of being you've kept just out of your grasp,

I suppose it's true that you'll remain utterly the same

But don't wait for me. I've stepped into a realm
Where I've outlived the dire incantations of doctors,
The earnest dread of statisticians
Wearing numbers on their sleeves –

I've outlived the hallowed halls and hauntings of the dead
'Til only one thing remains, and I suppose
You might still wonder what last moment remains
In millions of instant moments you'll still want to obey

Look within the islands of jewels within yourself
And find the place of greatest irritation

There, wrapped around a single grain of hidden understanding
Lodges the pearl that you must extract,
Pulling it out from your throat, to speak
Of unutterable tasks which still remain,

To bring your righteous angers to a better place
And all your pain and longing and mocking loneliness
You shall let yourself transform, coating them
Day by day . . .

With a translucent milk of wisdom
Until you are born anew, you ravishing fool,
Wearing the jewels of your consciousness
That transform and uplift the sorrowful world
In ways you never dared let yourself imagine.

(Copyright 1999 by ShaunDarius Gottlieb - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

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Letter to the Author:
ShaunDarius Gottlieb at CelloHeart@aol.com