Love & Be Loved

The greatest thing one can learn, is to love and be loved in return. Or so I've heard. Yet love is not without its incidents, accidents, and happenstance. Love is but a moment and infinity. It is a cry of suffering and of paradise...It cannot be, then, that love, given and taken, is the greatest thing.

At best, it is a makeshift thing.

I loved her. Yet we are no more.
Perhaps it is better this way. Perhaps it is not.

In her absence, I'm wide open--soul exposed--my outlook less than hopeful. I am uncertain of what my direction is...So I walk all directions. No sense that I've bitten off more than I can chew, or that I could choke on my own ambitions...I spin and spin, and where I'll stop...There is no stop, only go.

I want to say to her: 'We crashed, we banged; we are forever changed. But, please, will you know me again?'
And I want her to say to me: "No. Go Away."

And away I'll go...to spin once more.

I will know then that love is a funny, fickle thing--neither a possession or a right. I will know, too, that to give love is to receive love...and to receive love is to give love. But, above all, I will know that love is best sewn and grown with the devotion and compassion of, not one, but two gardeners. And when in bloom, this love must be tended to, lest it wither into an hollow husk unfit for the flood that's only just begun....

©2009 RA

Traitorous Traits

I don't bash myself out of habit. I am not the self-depricating type. I do find it necessary, however, to reflect upon Who I am and Where I've Been. Not always, mind you. From time to time. When the Moon is on the rise.

Most often, I stumble upon traits that are unbefitting of my soul, yet terribly suiting to my temperament.

After a recent late-night stroll, I tread upon and was smacked in the face by the rake that is my overt impatience. From some distant corner of consciousness, a protest arose, stating its case: "Impatience is your guide". A part of me believes. Another turns its back, arms folded. And some other piece knows not what to think.

The Father, The Son, and The Hollow Spirit. Am I completed by being "what I am"? Or must I be like the river, and go on ambling, until I am all smooth stones and ebb and flow?

The highways, the byways--all ways are my way. I need only keep my senses sharp, supple...I will amble. I will stroll. I will take the beaten path, the one less traveled, and the road to perdition.

Awareness, be my shepherd. Guide me to my Kingdom of Heaven.

If the vice grip of impatience will not let me be, I shall spit and kick, I shall pry away--I shall set my self free.

I don't bash myself out of habit. I also don't make it a habit to ignore the beck and call of Pre-destiny.

©2009 RA

Amidst the Glades of Time and Space

To walk the wide and blurred lanes of memory, is to walk in the shadows of the past.

For those of us seeking the light of today, it is important to know that there can be no light without shade. and no shade without light.

For those forging the pathways of the future, know, too, that the shade is where we rest ourselves for the steps we are to take next.

So, then, it would seem that all travelers of time come to the same impasse: a signpost that says, simply, "go forth and multiply".

©2009 RA

Dial-Tone Silence

The sound of allure is round in her mouth--
words flit about on the air of her breath;
vowels are sighs and consonants
her caress--she's smooth in her
part--so soothes my heart.
I'm not interested, Lady--
not today, no thank you.
What I don't say as her tone
transforms into dial-tone silence,
is that I'm sold on her, not her service.
There, in her soul, the code of my purpose--
her signal was loud and clear--still, she slipped


away.

©2009 RA