I was in a dark place when I wrote "Smiles." Mostly (not surprisingly) smiles have a happy association for me. Yet everything has its dark side too--even light (shadows), and there are times when I become more aware of that aspect, and have more need to express it. It's all part of the Great Dance.
SMILES
so many smiles I've drowned in then they went away like a beached fish I flopped around on the shore of their absence gasping for air other smiles stayed but I didn't I pulled back so far inside not even a bloodhound could find me when you smile my buried wound might gape wide again in response it looks like a smile but it's not it's a cry for help or pity or just the lament of an animal knowing it will die
somewhere there's a smile which never stops -- the primordial smile of the universe life and death are submerged in it cruelty and kindness the deepest trust and the worst betrayal that's why a human smile can mean anything that's why when I smile at you you should open and shut at the same time we often mean well but when a predator bares its teeth you better be wary you can't be sure
the withholding of a smile can be a weapon sharper than the keenest blade children get sliced to pieces though they still walk and talk and pretend to be whole if only we could recover the unsullied truth of a baby's first smile! if only I could splice your smile and mine into a changeless and serene embrace! I can't escape the smiles that enthrall my soul and the smiles that plunder it every day every day
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On a happier note, I never stay in a dark place too long. I arrive at a "turning point" -- a moment of truth when I'm able to change course and turn back toward the Light. Sometimes this metanoia can be a terribly hard rite of passage, but it's alway possible. All that's required is my soul's total and unconditional surrender.
TURNING
turn I tell myself but saying and doing are two different things I want to go on the same way as always even though it always leads to a dead end or worse turning means surrendering the known and risking the unknown turning means letting go dancing clueless pivoting my fate on a wing and a prayer there's no growth without turning without turning I'd calcify into a breathing corpse
how effortlessly the swift turns skimming over a pond and the oak's branches they're parables of zigzag becoming! no straight line calibrates life what can't twist and turn petrifies what won't open out to possibility clenches a denying fist turning's the way I incarnate my love turning's a kiss I exchange with the universe! turning and turning I align my soul with the wisdom of the stars
turn with me now though every fear screams "march straight ahead!" turn like a river's course like the tide at its ebb like this Earth as it spins through an ocean of space turn to face me then turn away then back I see now there's really nothing but turning I see now a single changeless direction doesn't even exist! when a butterfly emerges from the cocoon and spreads its wings that's the way it sings "I'm turning!"
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