A New Way of Being in the World
"You must change your life."
~Rumi
Coming to after a dream where all
around me were losing their humanity,
I woke with an inescapable sense of urgency.
As logic began poking holes in my story
I realized waking was to be my only agency.
Rising with my dream dripping from my hands
I felt as something old
in the reassuring arms of the new.
Yet I wondered at what point
would I go wrong?
The moment I chose to turn on
the tv’s regurgitation of yesterday’s news,
absentmindedly watching as it swallowed
the night agent's secret coded message?
And so I began my day in silence
resisting the temptation to fill in a blank.
I mused if only I could renew my life
as easily as rearranging the living room furniture.
Yet that would be a temporary fix
before falling inevitably back into
as fixed a pattern as before.
They say we only become fully aware
of our bodies when we're in pain;
that which hurts commands our attention.
Having lived with a wounded mind
and broken heart for most of my life
I imagine my awareness keener than most.
Must I become a walking breathing prayer,
God so close I can hardly tell us apart?
Why does a prayer always seem
a dead letter, quite possibly undeliverable?
Have I the wrong address?
What if I were to make out
the envelope to myself?
Who or what am I appealing to
that they should resolve my
especial version of the world?
The sunlight now filling this room
ought to be enough to give anyone hope.
When just then, the room lets out a creak
as if the walls were privy to my constraint
flooded by an invasive brightness,
a high-powered beam
seemingly aimed directly at me.
Me! One who so often
feels a sunny blue sky
too much to live up to!
Maybe because my own attempt
to be sunny often meets with clouds,
I prefer rain and slate colored skies
as if a poet were made
fittingly of chalk.
Sunshine's best when walking a trail
through a forest
as it summons the smells
from out of the ground
and tingles the nose
with notes of pine and mulch.
In this perfect world
all paths lead to the sea
abruptly and
absent of any rationale.
The sudden contrast between
the density of trees and rocks
giving way all at once to
the lapadacious life of
affluent sea water
is quite unforgettable.
In fact, it haunts me.
But here and now
in this empty morning
no sea can reach me.
Nor is there any moon
to haunt the sky
like a distant totem;
it’s borrowed light
the very illustration of
something that grows
ever more beautiful
recalled from
a distance.
How to fill in this day
without compromising any
of its abundant possibilities?
At what point
will I go wrong?
Surely when I lose
consciousness…
any moment now.
Or when I eat the wrong thing.
Make the questionable choice.
Ignore the cat’s complaint.
Turn on the tv
to quell my aloneness.
Indulge in a negative thought
in dissatisfaction over a friend.
When I fail to be empathetic
or kind even to myself.
How do I take in the world
without being poisoned
or at the very least,
over-indulged?
Where do I stop
and the world begin
when I am
so often,
let’s face it,
beside the point?
Today I will not run
away from my emptiness.
Nor turn from what is.
I will do
what needs to be done,
not hour by hour,
but moment by moment.
I will find a new way
of being in the world.
03/18/24
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