Wakeup and Daydream

When was it
You left the Door
to Your Holy
Inner Sanctum
open?

Where You keep
Your Canvases
and Paint Brushes,
Your Pens and Ink
and Manuscripts,
Your Movie Cameras
and Dancing Shoes,
Your Costumes and
Makeup?

When did the Cadre
of Drill Instructors
march in
with plastic bags
and garbage cans
and scoop and sweep
until all that was left
was a bare floor

just big enough
for a desk and
some filing cabinets and
a To Do List?

Where You once
Danced on Tightropes,
Swung Words on
the Trapeze,
made Movies
of Bare-legged Beauties
on Bareback Horses,
and Painted
Circus Clowns
with too much Lipstick?

Now You mostly do
To Do.

Is it Time to
Wake Up and
Daydream,
show The Drill Sergeants
the Door?

It’s not
Too Late to
Run Away and
join The Circus.

(Photo by Raphael Maksian; UnSplash)

 

You Showed Up

When the Casting Call
went out,
You Showed Up
and told The Director
You wanted to Play
You.

Which Lit
The Director’s Face
like a Sunrise
in Paradise.

Because You were
Perfect
for the Part.

At the Audition
every Move was
Flawless,
as if every Line
was Written
Only for You.

I’ve heard
The Director
gives You a Single
Note
after every Show,

whether the Theater
was Full or
running on Empty,
whether You
stumbled over
broken Lines or
brought down
The House.

The Director always Says
Something like This:

Act as If
You Belong
Right Where You Are,
as if
You Own that
Stage,

Because You Do.

(Photo by Dea Tycor: UnSplash)

 

You Choose

Who will You
Attend To?

The Scribe
Who Imagines
a Maker of
All That Is
with an
Ego?

With a Desire
to be Worshipped,
a Command
to be Obeyed,
a Demand
to be Feared,

Or Else

be cast into
Darkness
teeming with
Demons
custom made for
Torment?

Or will You Hear
the Teacher
Who Imagines

a Father
with an Heir Apparent
Errant Son,

Who leaves Home
without a backward Look,
pockets filled with
His Father’s Gold,
eager to spend it
destroying the
Self Adored by
His Benefactor?

Only to come Home
pockets torn and
Empty,
Begging to sleep
in an empty corner of
His Father’s barn.

Greeted instead with a
Banquet of Celebration,
a Ring and Robe,
woven of Love
that knows Nothing of
Judgment or Consequence.

Which Story
would You
Like to Be Told?

(Photo by Chuttersnap; UnSplash)

 

Awareness

She Awoke
in Darkness,
day after day,
even on
the Brightest of Days.

Feeling like
an amorphous
Blob,
overhearing Passersby
commenting
to each Other
that She
needed to come
Out of Her Shell.

It felt like a
slow Death,
as if she were
consuming
Her own Body,
day-by-creeping-day.

One torturous day
She felt Her Self
breaking into
brittle pieces,
crack-by-crack.

She began
One Last
Striving Struggle,
One Last
Desperate,
Dangerous Dangling
over the
Disaster of Her
Falling.

But instead of
Falling

She Became
Aware.

Aware of the
Besotted Beauty
of Her
Sun-Orange
Wings.

And She Flew.

Are You Aware
of
Your Wings?

(Photo by Joshua J. Cotten; UnSplash)

 

Look At This!

I was sitting
on the couch
with My Maker,

morose and mawkish,
examining
all the Reasons
I should be
Ashamed

of My
Scared and Scarred
Little Ego,

“So Sorry,”
I said,
“for this
narcissistic, lazy,
underachieving . . .”

“Oh, be Quiet,”
The Maker said,
laughing.

And The Maker
thrust a
Light Hand
into My chest
and pulled out
a tiny,
burning,
Pebble of Brightness.

“Look at This!”
The Maker said.
“This is the
Part of You
that’s made of
Love and Light and Laughter,
that longs to Be
a Gift
to All That Is,
without Regard
to All that
Comparative
Claptrap.”

“I Adore This.”

“Now,
go give It
to Someone
Who needs It,
there’s Plenty More
where That came from.”

And then I Knew:

When The Wise Ones Say,
“Find the Divine
in Every Being,”

They’re talking about
That Pebble.

(Photo by Ben Collins; UnSplash)