I just finished preparing a package of five poems that I’m sending off to a Poetry Competition, including Prayer for Radical Forgiveness, which first appeared here back in September 2008. Also, just between you and me and the lamppost (well, that phrase probably just carbon-dated me!), I am more than ready to share my life with my perfect complement, and this piece is powerful stuff for clearing up loose ends from the past. (BTW, don’t get too wound up trying to analyze my choice of the famous painting depicting the tragic Ophelia “in an attitude of deranged abandon.”)
Prayer for Radical Forgiveness
Forgive me for not sharing fully in your pain
for my own basket has been filled with seedpods of blossoming sadness
and ripened fruit dripping with disappointment
Forgive me if I do not remember your name
or the light aching for release from your crown
for I have been searching too long simply to remember my own name
and the codex that bears the story that is mine
If I have seemed aloof, apart,
forgive me,
for my sense of alienation has weighed heavy for eons,
littering interior byways of true connection
despite my unfettered yearnings for authenticity
Forgive me for random bouts of arrogance
for detours short and long that led me away
from unbridled compassion
for untold moments in which my own inner brilliance blinded me
and left me seemingly no choice but to return to refuge,
for brief inbursts of hesitation that kept my heart in check
while a calcified mind carried the reins in its tightened grasp,
forgive me
For sequestering myself
in the face of emergent tenderness,
forgive me
For pushing away your outstretched hands
in the name of independence,
forgive me
for clouding love with judgment spoken or believed
for not peering deeply enough into your frantic eyes
or listening to the muffled mewings beneath your angry words,
for clinging fearfully to the riverbanks
and forgetting to let go and be carried by bands of angels,
forgive me
For giving to others the care and nurturance I could not muster to give myself
for giving my power away to darkness within and without
for giving undue honoring and withholding true reverence
in the face of fear or interference
for giving excuses and rationalizations time and again,
for giving up moments before everything was given to me,
for choosing fear over love
confusion over clarity
conversation over contemplation
noise over stillness
illusion over truth
For this and more
for every morsel
for the sake of The All
forgive me
words divinely wrought 
So, does each line hit the target and softly melt the resistance like softened cocoa butter on a tight trapezius? Just wondering.
You know, an hour in blog time is equivalent to seventeen eternities in certain galaxies. Your attention span is refreshing, to say the least.
I adored your poem and most everything at your site — and left a somewhat gushing Comment to that effect.
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aaaaaah! Your lyrical cocoa butter on the trapezius of my soul.
I wasn’t familiar with the material-to-digital time relationship. Interesting. So, maybe the internet is making us immortal after all.
What on Earth I might have done to deserve an instant crush from such a beautiful and talented woman is beyond me . . . but thank you. And thank you for venturing over to my little digital garden. I hope you don’t mind that I added you to my blog roll.
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I’ve been enjoying your poetry for about an hour now. Each line feels like a kiss or a caress aimed at the most disturbed resistance. A massage for the soul. Thank you.
And, in return:
http://fullsun.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/breathe-become-a-poem/
-Michael
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every line, every word, every para.. touches the heart. You have a strangely passionate relationship with words. They hit the rightest spot a person can ever think of. Thanks for such beautiful words.
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Punam,
“strangely passionate relationship with words…”
Thank you. I like that description. Your sweetness gladdens my heart.
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Thank you, Christy and tekia. It pleases me that these words resonate with both of you. And Te’Kia, I am thrilled that you read the poem out loud! We must be on a similar wavelength; I always read my words out loud as I work on them — over and over and over — and I am feeling that it’s time for me to incorporate my own voice onto my blog. Few things are as enjoyable to me as reading my work out loud to any one who will listen!
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Reading this poem out loud makes it all the more a moving piece of work. A wonderful poem indeed. I hope this is successful in its journey to be published along with the other four you sent in. Bravo!!
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Your words are soulful, filled with the beauty of raw truth.
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@ramOsinghal, For your showers of divine words, I am grateful.
@Artswebshow, Thanks for visiting, for commenting, and for leading me to your blog. Great to meet all five of The Aspects. What a talented and juicy set of fractals you are!
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this is amazing and very truthful
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divine….beyond words.. for, give me expressions…..
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