You can
Die for it –
An idea,
Or the world. People
Have done so, brilliantly,
Letting
Their small bodies be bound
To the stake,
Creating
An unforgettable
Fury of light…
I thought
How the sun
Blazes
For everyone just
So joyfully
As it rises
Under the lashes
Of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?
What is the name
Of the deep breath I would take
Over and over
For all of us? Call it
Whatever you want, it is
Happiness, it is another one
Of the ways to enter fire.
By being present to this moment, this breath, we give ourselves over to a better thing. We can die for the sake of an idea, be martyrs for a cause, but what if there is no cause? Or perhaps only the sun. Or only all of us together on this blue boat home? William Blake writes:
They who bind to themselves a joy
Do the winged life destroy
But they who kiss the joy as it flies
Live in eternity’s sunrise.
With this next moment, your next breath, will you give yourself over to our shared cause, in this pause, we kiss the joy together.
From T - LoraKim, your posting has a different flavor today...
ReplyDeleteThe part of my life that informs this poem is my transition from separation to integration. "We are one" is such a cliche, I can hardly bear to think it - BUT also,for me, unbelievably profound and mysterious. Joseph Campbell has some wonderful thoughts about the single organism that we are. Even as I type those words, I feel an adolescent resistance to the concept! "I am so many! What is my name?" That will be my mantra for today!
In the beginning of the poem she describes the martyrs being burned on a stake as only a fury of light for a short peroid of time and one time only. Where as the sun burns brightly continuously and it rises again every morning. I interpreted the breaths describes as in awe of the immensity or the sun. At the moment it rises a large breath of "Oh" comes in awe. No matter the condition or where one lives they can watch the sunrise and feel happiness at least for that breath taking moment. She concludes that everyone can share in this happiness and this is a better way to enter fire (that of the sun) as it brings happiness as opposed to the fire of the burning sacrifice that brings sadness.
ReplyDeleteI, too, like sunrises. It does start one's day on a happy note. I liked the William Blake poem because it reminds me that if I keep a joy bound to myself and do not share it I am bound to lonliness, killing my life. But if I only kiss the joy and share it with others I will live with new joy or happiness with every sunrise for an eternity.