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There is a stage in the Soulโs journey at which โbecoming somethingโ and โbecoming nothingโ begin to look the same. Richard Rohr calls it the profound crossingโthe moment the first half of life collapses to make room for the second.
These three poemsโPillar to Post, Empty Vessel, and The Tearโare my performance of that collapse. They are for anyone who has felt the pull of the treadmill and opted instead for the bleeding of the pen.
Welcome to the threshold of the Light Morphed Wanderer.
I. Pillar to Post
From pillar to post, embrace or resist,
Seeking to be soughtโwhat is this?
Contentment or greed, captured by thought.
Eager for silence, mind open to naught.
Lucid or slumber for you to choose.
Refined or fouled, soulโs whisper or shout.
Remove the veil, the impulse for more.
Desire for less, constant distress.
On the treadmill, we walk; the wheel we endure,
The path is fraught with looking for more.
Nowhere to goโฆ heed the heart, hear the soul.
Bloom or witherโit is said.
What lies ahead? Alive or dead.
II. Empty Vessel
Silent Night, Oh, the plightโ
The choice of the pen over the skin.
Take my ink,
thick like my blood;
Ooze onto the page
while I feel the rage.
Take it all, my Soulโ
I have no one else to bleed for.
III. The Tear
What is truth? Become nothing?
Become something?
Blind from birth, where innocence lies
Bourgeois Fabric taut, teaches naught
What is truth?
Torn in two, in the middle of the night, light blazes through.
Soot on one side and Holy on the other
Longing and loathing, the fabric pulls tight
Willfulness or willingness
Both sides of the tear one cannot bear.
God and the grave are too much for all of this.
Live inside the tear with tearsโฆ my prayer
Let me go into the fabric, all this, I insist.