From an Upper Floor

However long. . . .

Coming into every family will be what a relative calls a misfit.  And the label will stick.  This often is  a child with a need to know everything and talk.  And more often than not,  there will not be anyone to listen.  Because there will be other children, work to do, buses to catch, and fake reasons given on the spur of the moment.  I don’t have time to listen will be the mantra.  And the child grows to be adult with the need still unfulfilled.  Because in the course of life, there will be work and school, meetings and planes to catch and television.  Now of course we add hand held devices.  The need continues in those born with the desire to learn and talk but like souls dwindle in number.

The sweet hours of the night are filled with the best conversations.  No matter the fatigue of the soul, the mind conversations are filled with wonder and appreciation.    I awoke with the words,  however long the night is,  and wondered perhaps I read them someplace.  Years of research never found them anywhere.  It proved to me again,  that we are not abandoned.    It will be included in a work in process called Psalms of Love. . .    

However long. . . 

However long the night is,
is however long we’ll talk.
A tongue dismembered
from its throat
is punishment too severe to be humane.

It has taken a life of silence
to filter through its members
lessons enough
for the toughest skin to break.

I have marched with your words,
through endless tasks,
through nights not filled with magic.
And heard the harangue
from compressed lips tearing even
the plea of forgiveness from Me.

Now I promise.

In the stillness of the life you know,
I will come for you.
In the light of the night,
I will make my way and
no walls will bar my entry.

I will sit the night and
across the table a hand will clasp
the one you call your own.
And in the magic of words spoken,
I will listen to the story built
to house lives of wonder.
It has taken too long.

And we, the each, will speak and listen
and as the words flow like rivers
toward the delta,
in ribbons of courage,
we will stay the night.

And however long the night is,
is however long we’ll talk.

photo by
John Holmes

The Pain of Thought. . .

They speak with their doctors,
their counselors and those with
backward collars
that they are anxious.

And cannot explain the panic
and the night sweats
that engulf them
even in their sleep.

They read they say
all manner of  books and articles
on positive thinking
and watch only those programs
that make them laugh
or sing their favorite songs.

They stay away from opinions
that destroy their sense
of equanimity and the
professionals wag their collective heads
and thoroughly agree.

Stay away! Don’t read the message
of those whose views would have
you stray from dogmas long
causing man’s anguish.

Don’t upset yourself, the counselors say,
just stay within the confines
of your parent gods.
They knew what was best for you.

But why then, you still ask,
when you know your life
should make a difference,

this kind of thinking makes your brain hurt?

In this day, thoughtful opinions are too much like work for most people.  Entertainment is what is preferred.  And  when school books are closed, seldom are they opened again.  Time is a commodity to be artfully balanced.  And unless we are ready to give up what has taken centuries for the human brain to be able to accommodate conflicting thoughts, we must use our time wisely or lose what abilities we have mastered.  When high school students find a paragraph difficult to retain, of course thinking will bring on brain pain.

artwork by Claudia Hallissey