Like wilted leaf it falls upon my soul – this day that wearied me before its start: interminably slow as a whole, unmemorably fast in every part…
This day is full of empty conversations, of actions I repeat without thought, of petty, unimportant irritations that cause no pain, of deeds that come to nought.
But in the evening burning leaves begin to raise the flames to empty skies, like prayers. I smell the acrid smoke through my skin with clarity and sharpness of nightmares. Contorted, twisted, dry, as black as coal, the burning autumn leaves subsume my soul.
Dedicated, with gratitude, to Yana Kane, who inspired this poem
You set off on a difficult journey – the journey of self-improvement. You read books and attend lectures. You meditate and practice. You work on your self, but it stubbornly refuses to improve. It remains self-same, immutable safe-same, for if it changed – how would you feel yourself? With no you and no self – tricky!
… but you do, of course you do, moment by moment, experience by experience, creation by creation, with or without a journey, you fashion your self out of current patterns and imagine that it was and that it will be.
You cannot improve on something that never existed, but you can always change a story you just made up.
Without answer smiles become pathetic, they lose all meaning, fade into a grimace. The sound of a broken dripping faucet co-mingles with the rain and disappears. Like clammy shivers of persistent fever it permeates my body and takes over – my solitude.
Time flows through me like water through a sponge. It oozes away, leaving a murky sediment of half-forgotten feelings and half-imagined events. And endless waiting. Sometimes it seems that I have been waiting ever since I was born. Waiting for something to happen and for everything to change. How? If I knew, the wait would be over.
Forgotten rooms, abandoned spaces, full of rubbish. Rubbish that drives you mad. Leave it there in the dark. Leave it there to rot – ugly feelings, broken relationships, things you had to forget in order to forgive… Lock the door and throw away the key. Phew… Isnt’t it better? You can start with a clean slate, clear conscience, honest gaze. Aren’t you nice? You can be happy now. You can be whole and pure. You can flower, a beautiful snow-drop, untouched by the rotting rubbish. Oh, but it gets in through the roots, it fills your fruit with poison of all that festered there, in the dark, in the abandoned spaces. You try desperately: keeping your thoughts pure and your living clean… but the poison coursing through your veins makes you into a deadly nightshade. All that you touch withers and dies, it turns into rubbish. Rubbish that drives you mad. You build them up, layer upon layer, abandoned spaces, forgotten rooms. How many layers now? How many more can you build, before you realise that you can never start over, never be clean, never become a snow-drop… before you scream, shrill and ugly, through tears and despair, bending over the withered remains of another broken relationship. And there is no way back, no way to clean out the spaces that feed your roots, for they are the forgotten rooms, the rooms that you locked and threw away the key.
Time is full of voids, empty spaces devoid of substance or meaning. You think, – Where has the time gone? and there is no answer. There is evidence: worn out shoes, wrinkles, bigger digits on the calendar and your pay slips… But the time collapsed, like an empty balloon, and there is nothing there but a thin film of facts.
Time is supported by a skeleton. Big, public ribs – wars and discoveries: a burning child running down a dusty street, tears in the eyes of a woman who can see again, a man stepping in front of a tank, another – stepping out of a shuttle into the void, facing overpowering odds with the same grim determination. Small, private bones: sitting on a curb, waiting to be picked up when everyone else is gone, feeling your hand on my back while making love – so big and warm, holding my child, crying in pain and joy, screaming in fear and frustration at the sight of love slipping away, laughing helplessly at a silly joke repeated again and again. Moments of loss and gain, kindness and thoughtlessness, Moments that stretch time and give it shape.
Time has bones, bones that keep you up, bones that stick in your throat and make you choke.
My mind is a forest. An impossible cathedral with boundless pillars of trunks and coloured light spearing through the stained glass of the canopy. The truth and beauty of it are breath-taking! And I walk through life looking up at the light with dry golden eyes, ever so beautiful… Until I trip over the roots, twisted roots of my forest, lies to myself and others, grown out of fear, and habit, and kindness, and love. And I find myself in the deep dark wood, staring with dark green eyes filled with tears at the light ahead. My roots, my trees, my pain, my joy.
