Uncontainable

             THE BEES OF EDEN

more and more my longing eludes me
becomes a hive where the bees of Eden
make honeycomb from the dark nectar
of old wounds    lost smiles   torn loves

faint Martian winds sculpt reddish dust
into rippling dunes   shiver my soul bare
you who gather toward me like a storm
this world or that    what does it matter

snickersnack goes the blade   birth  death
flensed generations      O eyes I drown in
touch I ignite to    giddy as escape artists
we sashay on a tightrope over the abyss

                            *

One must have chaos in one,

to give birth to a dancing star.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche --

WE SASHAY ON A TIGHTROPE OVER THE ABYSS

     The essence of love is an Eternal Spirit. I've seen it shining through the face of a lover, of a friend, and I know here, now, always, it's what I most unconditionally celebrate--the free, timeless, infinite, Highest Self. When my love is centered in this Source, I have no fear. I'm at home and at peace--one with myself and with my beloved.

     But if lovers are nakedly honest with themselves and each other, they must confront the abyss. There's no certainty in this life--unless it's the certainty that whomever I hold most passionately close to my heart I must one day be parted from. Not only is this reality inescapable, it's actually intertwined with the deepest roots of what love means.

     For I also love, just as intensely, a specific individual, a unique and irreplaceable human being. The quirks, the charms, the foibles, even the faults of that particular person are treasured precisely because they're so supremely personal, immediate, intimate and unrepeatable. The totality of whom I love, therefore, is a Universal Spirit manifesting through a one-of-a-kind, transient and perishing creature--which is why the profoundest love is always bittersweet. We die.

     I need to somehow keep both these seemingly paradoxical truths in precarious yet meticulous balance simultaneously. Only by doing so can I encompass at one and the same time the tightrope, the uncontainable balancing act, and the abyss. I most truly love, I'm most truly loved as, an Immortal Spirit animating a dying animal. To ignore or eliminate either side of this equation is to amputate an indispensable half of what loving involves, what loving is.

     A mistake I made in the past however, was not that I dispensed with either half, but that I put the wrong half first. My heart became too fixated, my senses to focused, on the mortal flesh at the expense of the Eternal Spirit. Yes, I recognized and reveled in both--but my emotional attachment and physical desire outstripped my intuitive understanding and soulful communion. So I had to learn the hard way that anything or anyone I sought to hold onto while trying to love with these skewed priorities inevitably turned to bitter ashes in my heart...

     But I am learning. Pain, as they say, wonderfully concentrates the mind. One definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same mistakes which caused you so many problems to begin with. I think I'm finally ready to declare myself sane. Putting Eternal Spirit first--always, unconditionally, despite my longing for, and terror of, a beautiful yet dying animal--that's the only way I'll ever be able to transcendingly love another, giddy as an escape artist sashaying on a tightrope over the abyss.

                              *