Long have I sat at the shore, watching my pain and joy mingle with my gone and then. The voyage: Farewell to yesterday*
Long have I played along these streets, wondering when and if my tomorrow would ever come.
Long have I looked unto the clouds, languished as the trees defiantly held their leaves, as yet another season of my loneliness passed into another winter of silence.
Long did I play in the streets of madness, tears and smiles, laughter and sadness – as my todays faded into yesterdays'.
Long did I hunger for all that should have been as I scrambled for the crumbs left in the rain of others' tears.
Long did I search for the rainbow, the silver lining, the hope as I was consumed by those whose only source of joy seemed to be my sorrow.
Now, as my ship comes into sight, my harbor watch comes to an end, I do look upon my sorrow with grief. For how can one leave their pain, their loneliness, and their disappointments on the shores of yesterday when this is all they have known for so long.
Now, as the call of the sea beacons me, my soul lingers just a minute longer, as I look upon my yesterdays, upon my follies, upon my dreams turned sour from my failure to make the sun to shine.
Now, with the dawning of a new sun, can I leave this all behind, dare I part with this that has become my second skin, my secret pain, closeted in my soul. Can I strip my soul bear, break down the fortress that has protected me from my solitude, can I allow the sea to wash me with its tears, flood me with its forgetfulness, and carry be aboard my ship which has finally come.
Do I dare, leave the comfort of my pain, leave the distractions of my folly, leave the complacency of my projects that have consumed me with their obsessions.
Do I dare, step upon the water, walk out to the deep, and chance the sea of my destiny.
Dare I must, steps I take, this trip began at birth, my harbors yet lie before me.
Not to dare, not to go, not to leave the comfort of my complacency means never to find the harbor of my dreams.
And so, to yesterday I must say – farewell.
*Inspired by Gibran's The Prophet
The voyage: Hello today
Pensively,
the morning mist caressed
the walls of my soul
as
I contemplated the day
that was to be.
Yesterday's anxiousness,
frustrated dreams of a today
that seemed
never to come,
has finally ended.
Paths,
furtively pursued
only to end in circles
caught up
in a rhapsody of questions
that
refused answers,
lay behind
in the tortured refuse
of a not so distant memory.
Desires –
born of grief and sorrow,
loneliness and abandonment –
now take refuge in a new found forgetfulness
that lurks on the shadows of what never should have been.
Dawn –
bright and poignant,
mysterious and wondrous –
gently ushers in new hopes,
new vision and new dreams
of a day where all can be in fields patiently plowed.
Morning of my today,
sweet rhapsodies of the days to come,
no longer hidden among the shadows of yesterday,
now unfold and comes into view.
Chains finally broken,
soaring above the rainbows
where all secrets are revealed and
all are released to be, to see, to actively pursue their all…
hello today…thanks for coming into my life.
Lost
should have stayed right there,
next to you, when your heart
was all that i could feel, your
kiss all i could taste, and your
love all i needed to be.
should have stayed right there,
next to you, when the smell of
your perfume made me drunk,
when your caress caused me to
know heaven, and when your
eyes spoke of tomorrows and yes.
should have stayed there,
next to you, when you and i
rode the waves of our love,
cresting in valleys just to reach
mountains to fall into valleys yet again.
should have stayed there,
but i did not, i could not, i dared not,
i would not, and so i am now
lost.....
I am not Ishmael
I am not Ishmael,
though i have lived much
of my life under the cloud of him who was
abandoned by his father, set adrift with
his mother, and was made the bear the shame of rejection.
I am not Ishmael,
though i have tried with every
ounce of my being to destroy the gift
of life, the wondrous blessings that
were mine, my inheritance I scorned,
and whose life was a forever hell.
I am not Ishmael,
though I have denied my God,
have decried my angst,
and have done all in my power to
find a different path, filled with pain, that
was not mine to bear.
I am not Ishmael,
for I have been redeemed,
I have come to learn, that
I am loved, and that Love is who I am
and that gentleness is at the core of my being
and not hate, deceit, angst, and fear.
I am not Ishmael,
for I have learned to see the
love in me, and in the world, and in
the One that is all Love, I am therefore
renewed in that love, in this moment and those to follow.
I am not Ishmael,
for i have opened up my soul,
have pondered upon my pain,
and have looked into the abyss
from which I have ran most of my
days, and now i see wonder and hope.
I am not Ishmael,
for I have become a new person
welcomed into the temple by His
command, nurtured past my guilt
for his purpose, that i now embrace,
and that I now trace in the twisted past
that was my yesterday.
I am not Ishmael,
though I am made of that past,
and though that past is part of me
it does not determine, but it does inform
my future, i am not Ishmael but Isaac
an heir to the kingdom.