Monday, June 30, 2008

The Poetry of Loss

There is a way of tears that one must travel. It seldom comes in youth and hardly ever during the years when our egos see us as saviors of the world, beauty incarnate or adoringly sensual. The way of tears comes in the luminance of darkness, in the bitter taste of the wine bottle’s final drops when we are still not numb enough to sleep. This way of tears tells us that we indeed are alone in this world. If there is no God we are all being mocked by some cruel joke the pundits of story and rhyme that has been cruelly thrust upon us. Even sleep is fitful and knowingly impermanent.

So we weep and we weep. This emptying sucks something out and let’s something in. I now have learned to welcome the weight of the mortal coil. It rests heavy upon my soul’s covering. I cannot breathe and I should not breathe for in these moments the heart of God weeps as well and I feel Him unlike other times of hubris and self inflation.

But, I cannot wish the way of tears upon me anymore than I can wish it away. It is the muse of both hinterlands. It touches both realms and let’s me see how dark I am... how dark we are ....how dark He is but oh so luminous as well.
So the way is never requested but cannot be denied. No one can ultimately describe this path for it words are such small and puny ciphers of reality and truth. There is no truth on this way for there is no falsehood either. This way is beyond the symbols of ritual and code. The revelations come beyond the reading of the page, outside the view of the heart and only let the soul embrace the furies in moments of divine loss and emptying.

Somewhere on the journey we catch a glimpse of the severe mercy that guides our steps and we know that being broken open sends our soul outside our knowing to places only our compassion will ever remember.

So now we can be comforted for we know this darkness and we know that someone has gone before and the well worn dirt of this secret road was meant as a guide just for us. Out of this forest of black we walk and yet long for another glimpse of its radiance. This is the poetry of tears.