It isn't to beat yourself to submission
Only to resound into joy
From the darkest depths of despair
Which surround you, as you hurtle like a comet
A meteor a blazing nova a shooting star
It's funny how in this lifetime
We get to touch only a few
Souls & the rest are rushing like reeds
In a water of streaming light rarely letting go
It's funny how precious these moments fly
And at the end of the day we wonder
Why we did it all again
The same way forgetting to touch such
Kindred loves streaming all about
It's funny, like lotus blossoms in the wind
~ There you go, fleeting by ~
Left my butterfly net at home
Only for a moment never to capture you
But to linger with a kind and tender word
Greeting with a whisper not a shout
It's funny today is too much like yesterday
I didn't stop to acknowledge my tears
I couldn't pause to center into my sadness
And without dark edges lining the aurora of my form
Once again I am bereft of gladness
To rhyme is too easy
Funny that this time
Gives us belief in other chances
To not leave the grant deed of this day
Locked in a safety box of habits speeding -
Should I plead? Should I be a homeless beggar
Holding out a tattered cap for nectar?
Should I sing a song of six pence searching for a dime?
If only you could take this breath
And hear amongst the cicadas the sound of the spheres
A ringing, a singing of Creation
As delicate as fairie dust on butterfly wings.
Heaven never left you.
Of ambition and productivity.
You misplaced the meadow.
And funniest of all, God never left your side,
Waiting for that iconic moment of your awakening -
Taking no need to rush, breaking bread,
Cataloguing regrets at the end of the day
To wish your bloated hours were leaner with grace
And that you'd done them otherwise -
Every beat, life is with you,
Has never abandoned you
Every pulse is to remind you
That every bit of honey asks for time
to linger in flowers,
And if this day is your last -
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But your first –
Begin to hear rhythms underneath the parchment of your skin.
Only seriousness which monkey's your back
Only denying grief which diminishes laughter
Only irony, were heaven to cradle you in its arms, like antennae,
And could you stop squirming, if only to see the stars as pollen,
There would be less doubt in your heart.
It's funny, will you be happier by the distance,
By your lengths, how far, your miles of diligent roads?
Were you a scholar, you would know
How funny it is that only by slowing
Will you embrace flowers at the roadside,
Taste the nectar missed at your feet
As you pole vault by.
It's only speed which causes harm.
How funny that whenever you slow
That racing mind you increase the standing
of your perfect feet
Holding every particle of you
to the unending sky.
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Memorial Day, May 30, 4:02 PM
From "Prayers Promised to the Angel of Death"