Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Bones In A Glove


     Some things we can lose and replace--but usually not a glove. A glove is one of a pair, and when it's lost the other's useless. Which is worse: to be the lost glove, or the one left behind? Either way--loneliness...


                            GLOVE

     just one glove    lost    pointless without the other    searching for a hand    it's useless now    yet still wants to serve    two gloves together meet a need    make a difference    every finger slips snugly into its fleecy pocket    each hand sports its own mini parka    but the lost glove -- fallen into a dark corner of the closet    absently dropped on the sidewalk    left behind in a theater seat -- it has no meaning    no future    no hope

     many people are like this lost glove    no matter how hard they try or what they do it's already too late    they've plunged through the ever-widening cracks in our splintered world    with seven billion souls now and more on the way how could it be otherwise?    think of all those who never have a chance    children battered or abandoned    babies born only to starve    I'm not a lost glove like these    but I might have been

     we should be careful with our gloves    we should be careful with each other    the worst thing is to be created for a purpose we can't fulfill    I long to discover the reason for my existence -- why I seem made to offer a hand of compassion    of service and belonging    if you wear the glove that matches my own    for even one day or just a lifetime    we'll suffer that much less loss    savor that much more love

                                *** 


     Our bones are with us every second of our lives, and last long after our deaths, yet most of the time we're hardly aware of them. How would I be--who could I be--without my bones? 


                            BONES

     even while still wearing this suit of threadbare skin    some days I feel peeled right down to bare bone    as if time and eternity played dice for my soul    I live splayed in those cross hairs now    at the bull's-eye of exacting transformation    once unconsciousness was my sandbox    I conjured such intricate castles in the air!    but they've all been swept away    what's left are just these blabbing bones 

     yet a bone has beauty    meaning    purpose    it endures and witnesses -- a gleaming link in the stringent architecture of the cosmos    no more disguises    no more costumes    only an austere purity where form and function fuse as one    I hanker for what's lasting    what reconnects me to verities unmutilated by fashion    money    fame    pettiness    I'd rather be a simple bone than a cunning fomenter of complication

     my skeleton keeps whispering    reminding me to make each hour count    to manage carefully this infinitesimal kink in space and time    do you hear your own bones crooning their insistent song?    don't ignore them    listen and learn    grow and change    your bones are saying there's another Reality    one deeper and wiser than you know

                              ****  


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