phoenix
Yearning
I have so many thinks about how I feel today. Nothing is striking me as more than a facet of the expression of it. Thinking of that phoenix again, absolute pain beyond measure and at the same moment joyful rapture, explosion of expression without bounds, before resettling. So many things to notice at once, joy, pain, suffering, creation, destruction, which is which? Do they feel any different? Does it matter? Must I be passive? Must I act quickly? Is my help needed in the helpful word granted me in a book, in the song of unmaking, am I unmaking “I”, am I making a new “I”? lol See now looking at it this way isn’t feeling quite so heavy, but in a minute I might be back writing in flame wishing escape instead of dancing with it.
Phoenix in the Fire
True Lies
Be careful following
Where others have gone before.
In the forest once
I took a track;
It looked well beaten
As if often used.
But it became difficult,
Branches crossed it low
And I slowly realised
It was made by creatures
In whose veins
No human blood flowed.
But I held to it
Becoming more fearful
With each step I took,
Unable to return.
The path held me
Until edging a precipice
It ended in thorns.
I stood there on the edge
Gazing at a fallen tree below,
Long-dead, moss covered,
Splayed out like a corpse fallen
And thought a wrong step now
And I will join it.
Only by an effort of will
Could I climb the slope
To safety and a true path.
Beware truths apparent,
They may be lies in disguise…
© Angela Grant (Kestrel) 28/12/2003
Finding the Key
It is bright day but here I sit
with darkness in my soul.
I seek freedom but always tie myself
to some place, some person,
some self-imprisonment.
Does this make sense? I think not.
What sense can nonsense make?
What hope can hopelessness provide?
I am split as a chestnut husk
splits falling from the tree
revealing nothing but strange confusion.
Enlightenment I seek
yet feel I comfort from the dark.
For what is hidden can reveal
a wealth of mystery beyond itself.
Layer beyond onion layer, lost in the seeking
of a centre impossibly deep.
What meaning can mystery reveal?
What cipher can disclose plain truth
without a key?
Shall the white mare pass
without me following?
She will stop if I ask her.
She has done so before.
Or shall I hawklike
simply hover and watch
and let another chance slip by
gone in an instant.
No, not this time.
When she passes I will call
and let her carry me
where she will.
Now is the time to take a chance,
grasp life to the full
and run with the wind
wherever it may blow.
At summer’s end let only harvest fall,
let me run on and seek that centre
that I have not yet found
or lose myself in never-ending spirals
knowing that a time will come
outside time itself
where all mysteries will be resolved,
all conjunctions joined,
all solutions found
and the end only disclose
another new beginning…
Elisa's Spot 