for those of us who weep (audio poetry 3:32)

Written August 2010;
audio added April 2018

This is for those of us who weep,
Whose tears hasten the blush of new blooms
For the young ones, the elders, for all our relations
For the pain that punctuates this planet we call Home
For the slings and arrows that have pierced us
time and again and again
Yet will never breach
our deepest reservoirs of compassion,
This is for us

This is for those of us who feel,
For whom shuttering cracked and wounded hearts
is not an option
We who will not go meekly into the dark night
Will neither squander our light for the sake
of a transient comfort
Nor cloak ourselves in intellectual posturing
and mental whirligigging,
For those of us whose feelings guide
our most authentic actions,
For whom sadness and joy, disheartenment and elation
Join in a riotous dance of color and sound!
Here are bouquets, roses red, aromatic

This is for those of us who stand steadfast
When it would be so easy and popular
to cave to a lesser ideal,
Judgment and condemnation turn aside so many others
Hesitant, they shirk the Divine imperative,
Buckle under and grasp for the quick and easy
Still, even in the face of direct and unrelenting harassment
by forces seen and unseen
There are those who elect to strengthen
our trust in original knowings
Recommit our search for the connate truth
And for you, these words tumble forth

For those of us who stumble along the way
Who know that surrender is an act of
uncompromising strength
Who slog through temporary crises of faith
and moments of doubt
quickly overturned,
We who place the universally approved
happy face on the shelf
and don the passing countenance of
deep desolation,
Refusing to play the consensual game of
productivity at all costs:
This is for us

For you, who carry your strength
within a soft and gentle bearing
Who do not anoint fear as your leader
Who give every day to your Creator in ways
large and small
Who find unabashed pleasure wherever you may
And live life as the gift that it is,
Be you gladsome or weeping, you are never alone
And this, sisterbrother,
is for you.