Life Will Move Me, When Movement Is Required

I don't want to talk any more
Neither do I want to move, or respond, or react

My senses - already replete
with tree branches, birds and the sound of the rain - 
need no further stimulation

Why elaborate?
How could this possibly be improved upon?

All my years of meddling achieved nothing
Except my own (inevitable) exhaustion

Life will move me, when movement is required

Until then, I'll look at the sunlit water drops on the window pane
And sip this tea. 

Trust

I trust you completely

I was trying to keep some of it out

I was trying to keep some of it in

There I was, squeezed in the middle

So many frontiers to be guarded

So much vigilance required to prevent encroachment

Protecting and surviving, I yearned for reassurance

The vastness then becomes apparent

It’s all so heartbreakingly beautiful

Every birth, every death

Nothing was ever wrong

Nothing has ever been wrong

Such gratitude. Such grace. Such perfection. 

I Know By Heart

How can I not be with you in your pain?

I know – by heart – the bereftness and grief of loss

I, too, have been seared by scalding, murderous rage

I’ve felt that same sting of guilt and regret

And been on intimate terms with shame

What is there to understand?

It happened, and it hurt

(Things happen, and they hurt)

So let it hurt

Yes, to all that is in you

Yes, yes, to all those hurts, all those unfelt feelings

We’ve waited so long, yet it takes so little

When we give up trying to solve it

And simply let it hurt for a while, together.

I Am All That

A coat of many colours has been made for you

Now, I see:

All I’ve ever wanted is to be here, like this

Finally saying yes to all that I am

All that I am

(As if there could be any debate)

I am all this, without distinction or discrimination

No part greater or lesser

Noting denied

Joseph’s brothers despised him, not because he had the coat,

But because he had the courage to wear it

Knowing he was all that

My dear, a coat of many colours has been sewn for you, too.

Life Has No Need of Happy Endings

All life wants is to know itself

To know and to be known

To be seen, touched, sensed, experienced

Life has no need of happy endings:

When you drop your demand for it to please you

When you’re no longer screaming for it to make you happy

It unashamedly delights in itself, in its own sheer miraculousness

Life sends forth its invitation to you every day

And you, making your myriad excuses, usually decline

Because you know that if you say yes

Your very own ten thousand things, your wonderful, labyrinthine creations

(The mes and yous, hims and hers, its and thems)

Will lose their substance, their gravity, around which you revolve

Once you finally stop spinning – even for a moment -

You’ll see that all life is here (for there is nothing Out There)

And unadorned, sublime, it truly has no need of happy endings

When You Wish It Were Not So

You wish to fashion life, to carve it according to your desires

At times, you sculpt carefully, delicately;

A corner rounded off here, an edge whittled away there,

Seemingly without violence

More often though, your cuts are swifter, frantic, more desperate

As you hack away at everything you wish were not so

Despite your efforts to excise all that you dislike

Life – whilst it may appear, at first, to conform to your will –

Has a tendency to remain stubbornly, brazenly whole

It keeps all those discarded, broken, misshapen pieces for you

Knowing that, one day, you will need them: they are essential to your survival

For they are the very thing that your soul most craves

Then, when all the defences have been stripped away

When there’s not a single fibre or sinew left to hold you upright

When struggle, effort and opposition are ablaze on the pyre

And you are prepared to fall on the sword of what was and what wasn’t

You realise there was never anything missing

Despite this loss of incalculable proportions

All is intact. You’re whole. You’re here. 

For All Those Who Have Been Humiliated

I’ve been holding out

Believing that patience is a virtue

When, in truth, I am beyond frustration

To save you from the offence of having to take me as I am

I died a little every day

I toned myself down, made myself smaller

Dulled it all a little

No stride, no demands

I went underground

Thinking I’d find solace in the subterranean depths

Except: this cannot be contained or constrained

Nor should it be

This is what no-one could see

This is what was hidden

Now, out in the daylight, blinking a little uncertainly

Yet breathing that much more easily

I’m thankful.