SCRUPULOSITY
I look around me
At the ruins of my room
The jumbled piles of projects
Still half-done
The dregs of documents picked up
While I was on the run
Could I resurrect them now?
The desiccated bones
Of where I’ve been
All unnerve me with their watchful eyes
They surround me, whisper low my name
Or if my gaze lights on them too long
Condemn my wanton ways – I cannot shake the blame
It looks like I have not been on the case
Have invested time and blood so wrong
Oh so wrong – wastrel that I am
So much I know I should have done
So much I never should have done at all
When and if I find resolve
To wrest these demons to the ground
Some of them will go away
Some will find a place to stay
Some will spur me on
To some new goal, I hope
I feel an urgency so great
In this early hour to fight
Do battle with all this at once
Tame the chaos of my life
Throw myself into the fray
Master what I can, so that
This evening or tomorrow morn
I can survey this battlefield
With pride
Or at least hope
Can perhaps make more soft
The accusations of this voice
That is my bottom-line – the truth
The real measure of my use of time
Have I lost the talents that I had?
Have wasted what life gave to me?
Is this life of mine in black or red?
I no longer really do believe
There is a hell to which I fall
But might as well
The turn away of this god’s face
Is all the hell I’ll ever need
Yet there’s a new voice that I hear
For all I know was always there
But only now can it be heard
I sometimes cannot hear the words
But its murmurs grow more strong
Open space where before was none
“Hush my child
This game of life has no score
Your bottom-line is
But a ruse.
You have not failed – and
Success is just a made-up claim
You are – but not as you have thought
You are not this separate thing
This ball released too fast
And helpless bouncing
Off the rubber posts,
Then flipped by some great lever in the sky
Nor are you the hero
Of this foolish game
Forget your quest to break
The hero’s code
It has been broken all along
You are
And what you are
Has no edge, no end
You are the master not
Nor victim – nor any other
Player in this mythic fight to
Go out with more points
Than you came in
You think that if you keep the score
Try harder, harder than before
You will earn mercy
If not success
This running hard is
All that you can do
In this here and now
But even that is not your
Pride or fault
You do not do
Hear me?
Do not do
Your role to watch it all
When life gives you the chance
Yes, breathe now
In this moment you are found
But you were never lost at all
You just forgot that you were found
You will forget again
That is the game
But not for long
It will not always be the same
You are a wave
And the ocean is but you
Your fellow souls peek out
And look like waves
But are the ocean, too.
This glimpse is grace
You earned it not
Even your grateful prayer
You did not achieve
Just thank the thanking
When it comes
Let go, let me
I will always take you home.
Dancing In The Supermarket Parking Lot
My friend is late to meet me
In the Ingles parking lot
Neil Young, on my new-to-me CD
Is rocking “Cowgirl in the Sand”
12 minutes worth
On my 7-speaker car stereo
The early spring, early evening
Blazes light
And the lot is filled with space
And I just gotta dance
White
I went to the beach this morning
Caked with the dirt of my life
And of my ancestors.
The gray sky reflected
The despair of my soul.
The beach was covered with fresh snow
All its detail and edge cloaked
In a mantle of brilliant color
Or lack of color
Unimaginably bright in this dark time.
I quietly slipped under the snow
And wore it home.
~ poems by Majo John Madden