What broke you, you lovely one, to make you now so hard against giving and taking life?
You have graceful hands, did you know? and honest eyes.
And you are tender towards the hurt ones-- to this I can bear witness--
and you can speak truth with gentleness. And you wear your wisdom without pride.
And you love the lovely things of the world.
And you laugh when you dance.
These are gifts enough for a man to bring before us.
You are not measured by what you lack. None of us has sufficiency.
Limping, we carry what we have, and offer it to those we can.
And what we can build with all our combined gifts, whether it is towering and strong or slight and frail, is of secondary importance. The first thing is the giving.
Why then do you hide from us? Why do you skulk in tombs and wrap yourself in graveclothes?
Come forth; we are weeping for you. All we ask is the light of your eyes.
Love will bear so much: haven't you seen it? Can't you believe it?
With patience for what you lack and gratitude-- yes, gratitude-- for what you have. We are not so full ourselves that your gifts are not missed.
Only this love will not do, cannot do: love cannot crawl into the tomb with you.
Cannot wrap herself in matching shrouds and sit, blind and cold, until you both stiffen and decay to nothing.
To bring you out, she would do anything, even that,
but you would only shrink further and wrap yourself tighter. And she, without a sharer inside or out, would cease to be love.
***
I would have carried you through fire.
I would have breathed in ash till my lungs were choked, would have let my flesh burn down to bones.
I would have held you high and been consumed-- I swear I would-- even to nothing, would have let every inch of me burn to dust,
If I could only have set you safe on a high place, a place of fresh water and clean air, where you could be at peace.
I learned very quickly that I could not do this.
I could do nothing more than dip my finger in water to cool your tongue, whenever you asked it. And the only burning I could feel was in this small touch--
One finger of mine, against your whole tormented body.
But in the end--
Oh joy--
You found your own way through.
And though I have never seen you in a place of peace
(I suspect peace is foreign to your nature)
It is a greater gift than I could have hoped for, to see you standing where the air is clean.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Ginny, these are so beautiful.
I loved this. Ginny, I keep having this experience with reading your blog -- it just happened again while reading your most recent post -- that there is so much there, it's so dense, that I don't know how to respond, and my mind overwhelms with thought and ideas and responses. Pulsing.
But, for now, at least for these poems, I will be over it. These are beautiful.
Oh my LORD..... did you write this? Ginny, how I have MISSED your blogs. I so wish I could express to the world a piece of myself even half as true and pure and genuine. Its amazing to me that I wield words as a passion whereas you dont have to wield them as they are your essence... and the difference. I want to SIGN this poem, wrap it, and give it as a gift to you.
Post a Comment