We all begin naive.
And skipping we are learning
until we are locked
into a halt
of our own self-made direction.
There we discover ourselves
newly awakened,
scared and scarred,
privileged and lacking,
distressed and self-soothed
enough to acknowledge
only we can be responsible
for the naiveties in our past,
where mistakes were made,
ours and theirs
and we are nevertheless
confined here and now together
to this cruel and playful fight.
Some follies realized on sight.
Others began as success,
then laid latent
and soured with time.
Innocent and natural
Always frictionary
Always inevitable.
Mis-steps are irreconcilable
for any other
but one’s own.
Arrest is yours too.
Try on behalf of another
to preserve them of their darkness;
drag them to salvation
and you’ll darken yourself,
damaged both sides.
Yes we may forgive each other
And often we should
be so generous and more.
But reconciliational healing
lies in the eyes of the forgiver,
not in the hands of the forgiven.
Instead of crying on our birthdays
Let us make a cake
fold in a wish,
and bake it
of our heart’s private kitchen.
Wrap it before it spoils,
and go off to foreign land.
Taking it out there,
sit down and
let the one wild wind
blow down our wishes
and then, yes, eat it too.
For only then will the flame
glitter on within
all life’s precious bodies
wrapped up in this wrestling
of right and wrong.
These moves left undone
risk our bitterness.
And only the sweat
from our good work
defends darkness impending
and evades our bright future together.
The punishment of bitterness
is the worst kind,
for the actions it pilots
and the disillusion it ensues.
This is no solution.
We are each integral
space-holders.
We are each boundary makers.
We are
ever rule breakers
inadvertant though it seems.
Dilemmas ripple out
and shake the world
into our likeness.
This is our responsibility.
Don’t we all want only to stand
embracing one another and gazing
into the promise
and what potentials
wait in the beyond?
Don’t we all want
to remember
peace in the middle,
and opportunity above?
This is our pursuit.
Currently we discover ourselves
possessed by and in posesion of
of enough instruments
with which to write out story anew.
Let’s put yourselves together.
Lift up our mighty pens,
and make our essential revision today.
Let’s trace an ancient coastline
in the inky law of nature.
Leaving behind
the savage blow of our past
There’s life to renew now
And learning heals wounds.
Blessed be our scars
for the essential memories
they record and report
to us, not to them.
For your scars are
your scars and not theirs.
Fight until all of you
is freed for your ability
and in spite of your need
for the false relief
of your own righteous justice.
This is your fight.
May your re-write be attuned
to your fresh heart’s narrative.
A battle must be fought within you
with a warrior spirit
else it be laid falsely
from within and onto another.
Self discovery is eminent.
Let’s lock our own horns
before we sound them off,
A great shedding of our struggles.
We each hold the only and only key
Which frees all others.
Turn it around
in the crack of your heart
and deliver us to the present.
The levity therein
offers a superior view
of this peaceful now
and the promising when light.
As each life is a tragic threat to peace
and the highest promise too.
Living is pleasurable.
Pleasure-seeking is not
lucky enough to deliver
each of us on a single silver platter.
Letting go of this past hurts
but the load of old pain
is just too heavy
to carry it out
into a better future.
May we let go of the past
and act in honor
of the plain, planed, present movement
toward the tomorrow we will create
together for ourselves,
for each other,
and for this living world
we can never unlove.
May we support one another
in this critical effort to surrender.
May we drop our painful past,
that it may compost and grow
up to the present and the real;
that our darkest, most precious,
and most dysfunctional resources
be burned to nothing
in sacrifice
to a fresh bight place
where our children may play.
This work is skill in action
Our own work to do.
We all need support.
We stand forever and always
in support of this critical work.
