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I am touched again re-reading a story by Rumi wherein there is a man who rescues a bear from the jaws of a dragon, touched here on that delicate square
inch of my heart that I've only let lovers touch the spot that I cover in the presence of knife jugglers the spot that dowses water from behind my eyes. who is this man I wonder who cannot be bought off who flows to the helpless the way water flows and fills the low places and why these particular metaphors I want to ask Rumi who never explains why a bear a dragon savage beast rescued from the jaws of savage mythological beast why not man rescued from dragon or man rescued from bear? why you Rumi, who grew up in an era when bears were trapped like rats and valued less than rugs? in my mind I replace the bear with all sorts of animals lamb goat cow monkey opossum but only the bear fits only the bear will fill out the story only the bear like the last dark piece in the puzzle of night is enough to blot sunset's curtain only the bear will gouge my heart so unknowingly. how gnawed I've been for years by this mystery this hungry tenderness for the bear who (Rumi never says) after rescue probably just went back to being a bear eating sheep ravaging corn sleeping for shiftless months then waking to darken stoops and birdfeeders in the wee hours of dreams and perhaps it is in dreams I sense it will finally end, the parallel doubt how much I, a man deserve to have a saint pull my unworthiness from the void beyond voids and be stroked silent by how the sad black fur is smoothed and set free to live free, no further questions asked. ---------------------------- (The Rumi poem that inspired this may be viewed here) the long nights remember me and
press the dark ovals of their faces against my window and all goes black. but they come later and you sun linger longer. sun, I think you love me more. I think you are trying to catch the loose end of newspaper jutting from my ribcage with your tongue blue as a gas jet. I think you love me the way thighs love hands the way the trees love horizontal the way the grass loves the dirty fabric of this poor-shod earth. I am a poor boy too, sun I will burn anything for you, I am your secret arsonist. I have been waiting all winter like a mad hatter for your crucifixion tea. be my marmalade, sun be my reoccurring delicate ache. when you ignite me at dusk my shadow will lengthen all the way around this earth. in March the waiting for spring
insists loses patience antelopes the heart over its gates of knowing. I don't recall my first kiss on days like this only my last still darning my sternum still silencing the instructions between my ears. the grass is wise jacketed in seeds withholds the way monks robe themselves to prevent their flesh from burning the Word Everlasting into the eyes of the unready. everything that has not arrived is holy. promises are better than gold, gold is garbage. listen. birds are telegraph signals announcing the Guest. the Merrimack cracks its icy knuckles like a carpenter eyeing wood. I believe in they who eat dirt and breathe starlings. all the Alzheimer's patients of my heart one by one have long wandered off. it is a kind of sadness. now to call them home stroke their silver hair and listen to them the way loneliness listens to lost airmen. we are all slowly abandoning reason to be wise like the grass. when we love ourselves the waiting shuts and and a new kiss tulips open our hearts. |
Poetry LogPoems are posted here when I'm ready to share them. I often don't title my poems. The date you see above the poem may be the date it was posted here and not necessarily the date it was created. To see more, click on the Archives below. Archives
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Unless otherwise noted, all content ©Paul-William Gagnon, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs license.
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