AVANT SOUL

Ten Thousand Blossoms In the Snow

There is magnificence everywhere
You need only look to the consistency
   the sun which brightens each morning
Or your breath, which steadfast stays with you
   through all your gasps and tremulous fears
Till your last.

The planet spins, and you are on it
And gravity neither asks reasons
   for understanding,
Nor the logic of your feet or your successes.

In this dormitory of humanity, even Mother Nature,
   your den mother,
Doesn't hold your soul to late-night curfews
Nor is the door to all wandering existence locked
Because Mankind sneaked past his conscience
   like a midnight cowboy
At some illicit rodeo rendezvous.

There are few rules here, but many consequences—
You can fast 29 days in the arid desert
Or retreat to the monastery
You can follow your guru or psychologist to Timbuktu
Or take vows of silence until your actions catch up
   with your proclamations—

Yet this Universe never hangs a sign, saying,
"Back in 30 Minutes" –or– "On Sabbatical"
And never once did your cells cease multiplying
Inside the marrow of your bones,
Never once did the magnificence of grace abandon you.

Truly, we announce our passageways
And frame our degrees and graduations
But the only end to growing is when we cease to invest our attention.

After your death, your fingernails and hair will keep growing
   for awhile
Without the risk of eviction, divorce, or condo conversions
And your soul will at last depart
   for eternal rent control
In a perfectly-controlled climate of awareness—

Which is not to say that you shouldn't slow down,
But in the magnificence of your being
There isn't a single instance
   where your soul skipped out from your body,
Failed to pay child support, or neglected
Its unfathomable commitment to every part of you:

Fool, wise woman, madman, stud,
Celibate, priest, prostitute, politician, puppy,
Housewife, house-husband, Valentino, or Saint Bernard,
Drink to me now this elixir of brandy
Where in good spirits you have played every part
And exhausted every role in this endless calliope

When you have lost your way in the blizzard
   of human arbitrariness. Drink of your essence,
Straight, without chaser, and realize
The magnificence of all your expression inside yourself
And the many parts you play, puzzled, becoming whole.

Always there, never absent, and eternally with your Creator,
This bouquet will never cease flowering
And touches the secret opening of every good spirit
Which blossoms to some inner sun even as its petals
Fall and are frozen in a vast blanket of snow.

These serpentine byways have worn and weathered
And shriveled your outer features
And for every storm that your body has endured,
Stained, stretched, and leathered,
The interior essence recaptures its amazing innocence—

You are here. You are now. You are forever.

And I see you crumpled by the roadside,
One more worn-out hull, a discarded shell in the winter.
The winds are howling, and the planet plunges
Into a frozen darkness, pitched into a dark tunneled corridor.
Your soul soars into the light, forever free of its troubles,
Leaving behind ten thousand blossoms in the snow.