i like for you to be still

i like for you to be still
it is as though you are absent
and you hear me from far away
and my voice does not touch you
it seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
as all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things
filled with my soul
you are like my soul
a butterfly of dream
and you are like the word: melancholy

i like for you to be still
and you seem far away
it sounds as though you are lamenting
a butterfly cooing like a dove
and you hear me from far away
and my voice does not reach you
let me come to be still in your silence
and let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp
simple, as a ring
you are like the night
with its stillness and constellations
your silence is that of a star
as remote and candid

i like for you to be still
it is as though you are absent
distant and full of sorrow
so you would've died
one word then, one smile is enough
and i'm happy;
happy that it's not true

pablo neruda

i read this as a love poem, but not a love poem a man might share with a woman but with the allness of everything. in the distance between my self and everything there's a space defined by the noise of memory and expectation. my work is to quieten - not subdue or pocket - but to quieten that noise.

it's in that silence that love can flourish.

the sun

"that i exist is a perpetual surprise, which is life". rabindranath tagore

the sun gives without condition . . . its gift is received and used in every way imaginable . . .

what can be learned from such benevolence . . . .

a stone which has become a ruby
is filled with the qualities of the sun.
no stoniness remains in it.
if it loves itself, it is loving the sun.
and if it loves the sun, it is loving itself.
there is no difference between these two loves.

jelaluddin rumi

the door to freedom

when rene magritte painted "the door to freedom" in 1936, he might have been describing the shattering instant in which the distance between who a person is and who they are to be becoming is laid bare.

on the one side of the shattered window is a comfortable room.
on the other side, a grassy hill.
in the distance - the sea.

the glass shards contain elements of the image beyond the room.
the glass shards have fallen inwards creating discomfort in my room.
i am drawn to see the view beyond the window - the world beyond myself - and the shattered fragments of my understanding of that world . . . lying on the floor.

the air blows in . . . i imagine it warm and scented with grasses and wildflowers. sounds - the breeze, the rustling grasses, birds.

the light passes through the glassless window - clear and bright. it illuminates a dusty floor, the old paint on the walls. shabby curtains.

the opening in the window - like a star - pulls me through.
are those paths in the meadows?
does one lead to the sea?
i hope so.

it's a destination.
a formless destination.
broad . . . expansive . . . the opposite of this room i have lived in for all this time.

i have lived in rooms like this for most of my life. i have sought them out when paths to the ocean lay before me. those paths drew me like a moth to a light but they also frightened me. that expanse. that great unknown. so many fears, so many questions.
what is there when i arrive?
where do my rules fit? where do they go?
what happens to my expectations? what are they replaced by?

the not known often has greater power than the known.

the little rooms i have lived my life in are all labelled "what i know".

the oceans are all labelled "what i have been afraid to know".

the distance between what i know and what i am afraid to know is a measure of the suffering i have endured.

to cross the space between the two is to pass through the door to freedom.