this there has never been

Freshly returned from a brief yet extraordinarily potent getaway pilgrimage,
I am awash and alive with the reclamation of my soulspirit.
This poetry first appeared here in June 2010: I rediscovered it as I am designing
a new way to share my poetic wisdom “off the internet and off the interstate.”

there has never been a time such as this —
the sword of damocles hangs heavy,
horsehair thread untwisting on itself
sweat pours from the brows of the powerful
is it not at last time for the reckoning?

there has never been an hour such as this —
imminent peril draws a bead on human nature
each moment laced with wild, fervid opportunity,
we can always slip back into the known
it asks nothing of us and seems to offer up our every desire:
the heady days of youthful oblivion
the promise of forever an unfurling ribbon of immortality,
backsliding is simply too easy
reverse engineering will not net you the illumined life.

there has never been a you such as this —
the maps have all been burned
instruments upend themselves in the face of universal flux,
you feel yourself pushing at the seams of your skin
crammed into a shell insufficient to contain your rampant maneuverings:
any attempt to correct your bearings appears futile
even the contortionist is baffled by this endless positional repertoire,
time collapses, rendering forever but a pale version of its former self.

there has never been a day such as this —
overripe with possibility,
marauding energies march across the landscape of your heart
taking no prisoners and pillaging, burning at will,
what has been irretrievably lost need never be reclaimed:
the dungheap towers with the carcasses of old expectations and bitter memories
infidels of the ego catch and stir, clash and grind and stir some more,
the mind falters in its attempt to rein in anything at all.

surrender looks like this: chop wood, rake, plant, make holy water —
do not squander your godhead in the shadow of lesser frequencies,
consider the lilies, observe the few whose simple joys
far outweigh the burdens of yoked humanity:
your moments of so-called indiscretion, human failings
are mere apparitions backdropping the lush landscape of divinity,
what you may once have been surely is no more,
all that you now bring into being has not yet answered your call

if you are wise, you will listen in another direction.