What do we brush against--with our bodies, with our souls? What brushes against us? Sometimes it's invisible. That's when existence touches us most deeply, changes us most.
BRUSHING
a hand brushed my arm once it was as much as I could bear that's the way sometimes when the heart's connected to every cell of the body one touch capsizes a world! but what about all the years no hand brushes against my skin? what about all those moments the void instead caresses me? then the faintest stars leave livid scratches you can't tell but they're there through them my heart's blood slowly leaks away
I can't read the map of my own loneliness I have no compass needle pointing beyond no beaten path stretching ahead to follow maybe it's a reality hardwired into my DNA what I brush against I can't predict what brushes against me might mean nothing or life and death more likely I'll wind up with dozens of chigger bites they inflict a certain kind of love but I'd be happy to live without it
a Wing brushed my soul once it was as much as I could bear that's the way sometimes when the soul's connected to every atom of the universe one touch capsizes a world! but strangely enough this wasn't the only instance I've felt brushed by that Wing more and more I feel lifted as if an immense and invisible Ardor now envelopes me! surpassing even the tenderest human touch an Angel's wing-beats guide me home
***
I long for the day when the human race finally wakes up. Some individuals already have, but most remain fitfully asleep, tormented by bad dreams. The common denominator of these nightmares is the delusion that we're inherently separate and divided beings. But those who are awake know otherwise.
WAKING
the sleepers tossing and turning in their scratchy cocoons dream they're awake I know that was me once I won and lost many battles but sleepwalking all the while so much still had to die! those hypnotic self-images parading across the blaringly lit stage set of my mind those famished eyes glaring from the pitch-black cellar of my fears I dreamed I was a hero doomed to tragic fate and what I dreamed came true
real waking isn't the fitful glare that spasmodically shoots out from a lurid clash of phantoms and shadows real waking's almost imperceptible a radiance barely tinting the soul's horizon it's not even noticed at first mesmerized as we are by the glittering labyrinth of fun-house mirrors seduced as we are by the appetite's endlessly gyrating merry-go-round real waking comes soft and silent and slow
but like an x-ray penetrating every slightest crack and corner of being until nothing's left except an emptiness that sings and shines then everything living finds a home what does it mean to be awake? just this! no more separation between us no more barriers dividing heart from heart suffering from compassion grief from love when sleepers awake we rise up joyously freed at last of our old splintered shells
***
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