I Give You Back

I give you back.
I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear.
I release you, you were my beloved and hated twin,
but now I don't know you as myself.
I release you with all the pain I would know
at the death of my daughters.
You are not my blood anymore.
I give you back to the soldiers who burned down my home,
beheaded my children,
raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.
I give you back to those who took the food
from our plates when we were starving.

I release you fear,
because you hold these scenes in front of me
and I was born with eyes that can never close.
I release you fear so that you can no longer
keep me naked and frozen in winter,
or hot and thirsty in summer.

I release you

I am not afraid to be angry
I am not afraid to rejoice
I am not afraid to be black
I am not afraid to be white
I am not afraid to be hungry
I am not afraid to be full
I am not afraid to be hated
I am not afraid to be loved, to be loved, to be loved.

Oh you have choked me but I gave you the leash,
Now I have no neck.
You have gutted me but I gave you the knife,
Now you have no hands.
You have devoured me but I laid myself across the plate,
Now you are full and the plate is empty.

I take myself back, fear.
You are not my shadow any longer.
I won't hold you in my hands.
You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice, my belly,
Or in my heart, my heart, my heart.

But come here fear.
I am alive, and you are so afraid of dying.

Unknown Poet

Room with a View

Same house,
different rooms.
One has light. One is dark
The dark room has a magnificent view
If you can only get to the window
Without tripping over the furniture
In the dark.

Limits

Containing Joy
I’m full to the brim
Walk steadily, now
Stay in balance
Stop when the stopping’s good
Then
The liquid ecstasy of Being
Will not spill
And get wasted.

Faithfulness in the Center

This morning at 7:30
I rolled out of bed
And while the kettle was boiling
I threw my hexagram for the day.

At the sixth throw, the coin stood
On it’s edge, perfectly balanced
Neither heads nor tails.
I nudged it with the Tao te Ching
Which happened to be
The book closest at hand.
But the coin didn’t fall.
It just stood still in the middle.

I saw that the choice was mine to make
Whether it would be heads or tails.
Rather than leave it to chance,
I could choose.
Heads gave me hexagram 61: Faithfulness in the Center
The power to move even pigs and fishes, hmmmmmmm
Tails gave me hexagram 60: Discipline, ouch!

But, as every disciple knows, faithfulness needs discipline.

So I didn’t choose.
I too, stood still in the middle.

Mnemonic

He Died
And entered the Ocean of Forgetting
For getting fish
For getting more
Aquatic invader par excellence
Sailing from shore to shore
Until all that’s left was Mnemniopsis
Littering the Black Sea shore.

Remember, remember, the jelly screams
There is nothing in my wake
I eat up all your protein dreams
Like you, I over take.