Category Archives: spiritual

I plead the 4th

people are speaking to me,
thinly and echo-like.
I watch from above, my love.
(or across, down, sooner, later)
“do you want another pillow?”
“I don’t think he can hear you, Karen.”
“blink once for yes, twice for no.”
I have trouble working those old fleshy levers.
such meat.
they say come back, they say don’t leave.
I see contorted faces.
but, really, they shouldn’t worry.
I say don’t worry, but can’t spell it in winks.
I am the explorer, now.
Of a different plane.
We’ll meet again
don’t know where
don’t know when
but I know we’ll meet again
some sunny day.

The tree hugger

Old Man Maple
Is pushing a hundred, we think.
Each spring and fall, he gives his all.
Makes emerald hall,
Speckled sun.
Sighs with the whim of the wind.
To one who lays beneath his tower,
Awaiting his star’s communion,
Such things are shown!
Layers of focus, light on dark.
Rustles of sound.
An overture to the divine.

Such whimsy is despised by some,
Pointing to broken branches,
Dented roofs, clogged eaves,
Upset neighbors.

Me?  I do the repairs
And wait
For next summer’s hammock time.

The wasting of a mind (a mother known)

The years are ten
since your body died.
Fifteen since you fled in spirit.

That damn old sharpness and command you had
That keen sense of the ridiculous
Lost in the vexing of an unchosen labyrinth.

Our nervous laughter.
Our embarrassment for you.
Sidelong glances.
What to do?

You were looking around corners,
expecting the worst.
Each day, the maze grew more confounding.
Your shields were up,
and no one could get in.

We strangers let you lie
in a home that was not.
We came and fed you,
shared the load
until you were done.
Helpless.  Helpless.

Just last night,
in my dream of blackened beams,
I watched, appalled,
as your mystic ghost rose in torment
from its wasted habit.

Embarked on the journey of the lost.

 

The getaway

as a freshening teenage boy
just shy of sixteen years
foisted from a battle-scarred home
into this supposed school of highness

he is already in retreat
from vitriolic violence
from love that has gone
from hormonal eruptions
from the Bullies Three

the ostracization of the ostrich

he builds his defences
hands upon hands upon hands
he pushes away, and keeps all

at arm’s length.

Impossible

I learned in high school math
That it could be proven, with numbers,
that motion is impossible.
It was called Zeno’s Paradox.

It went something like this:
A man running to catch the bus at a certain time
would first have to run half the distance,
then half of the remaining distance,
and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.
He would never get there.

Some days, I am that runner.
Knowing there is a “bus” to catch,
Every day, every day, ad infinitum.
But I am tired, and sad, and poor in spirit.

The stodgy determined part of me
is a little sick,
but, like a voice crying in the wilderness,
it says I must refute Zeno.
His paradox was meaningless numbers
that could be proven wrong, just as easily.
And, as everyone knows, motion is a fact of life.

I lie in my bed, in the late morning,
and say to the now distant voice:
See?  I have already done the impossible!
Each day I move, I do, I rest, I do again.

Ah! Do you! ( It says back.)
Try!  Try now!
I say I must rest for a little first….
there is chuckling.
Then, there is something like paralysis of the will.
I want to weep from frustration,
but I must rest for a little, first.

Somehow, I get the upper hand in this wrestle.
Shuffle to the shower, start to shave.
What for? (I think, or hear).  I stop halfway.
The sourness of doubt slinks back.
If I could just rest for a little bit first.

Coming back to myself, I am somehow in robotic mode.
Finish the shave, get dressed, carry the laundry downstairs.
Back upstairs I go with the load from the dryer.
Stopped halfway in a spiral of hopelessness.
The Runner.  The Runner.  This is impossible.
If I could just rest for a little bit first.

Zeno has won today.

 

Are my feet off the ground?

With an inkling of joy & brightness, I’ve experienced what seem to me to be the figurative visitations of angels.  Chance encounters, while out in the marketplace or pumping gas, where a person with an almost visible soul would happen to look my way and smile brightly.  That small gesture has brought forth from within me the best I have to offer, and, out of my tired and sad eyes, I try to return the same.

This has happened many times within my last ten years, and always with a different person.

Once, on one of the very worst days of my life, something passed through me and made lighter the burdens of my mind.  Again, a visitation of sorts.  It did not involve a person, but still I had the distinct feeling that someone was telling me to be of good cheer, for this will pass.

There was an afterglow from this that lasted, and the foretelling was, of course, true.

It’s said that the soul wanders during the dream state.  Some dreams, for me, have involved feelings of being lost or directionless.  Others have encompassed a bottomless loneliness.  One was a bright and lucid dream, in which a cherished Other looked with warmth into my own soul and physically held me.  I woke up crying.

Then there are the ones centered  around the magical ability to fly or levitate.  There was a memorable episode where I was attending an important cocktail party in a palatial mansion.  We were all dressed formally.  I felt ridiculously out of place, like a Mr. Bean in a tux.  I then did my dream-thing and began to levitate, swimming horizontally through the rooms with a grin on my face.  Seemingly, no one noticed, and this irked me.  So, I slowed down, waved, and tried to make eye contact, all the while shouting “ARE MY FEET OFF THE GROUND?”  Figure that one out.  I should tell my psychologist about these things.

 

Barricades

I dreamt this morn’ of fences
They’d been put up while I slept
But the fog obscured my senses
And I stumbled ’til I wept

The urge was strong for going on
So I got up and I leapt
O’er barb-ed wire, until the dawn
Its promises had kept

The fog had burnt away from there
The barricades were clear
The wind was passing through my hair
And freedom was so near

“Awake me not”, I prayed to One.
(The Spirit in me now)
“I’m almost there, I’m nearly done”
Then lost the will, somehow.

This thing within my soul has made
The devil grin with glee
He’s scripted well this whole charade
To gloat his victory

Awakened was a new resolve
That I’d not lose the fight
The clock, its circle would revolve
And I’d join the dream next night