Author: yakodzunThe spirit expressed in this photo by yakodzun and his model reminds me of the essence of the woman I loved in those days.
"There is nothing to compare yourself to. You have your own value. That value is not a comparative value or an exchange value, it is more than that."
- Shunryu Suzuki
Branching Streams Flow in Darkness
This is the value of having others in my life. It is not only true of me that my value is more than comparative and the value of exchanges, it is also true of you. I am in service in two particular fields of action. In the one I serve industry and profit, but also I assist in feeding the people. In the other I assist in saving and salvaging and beautifying lives. I am not only loving those who are close to me, but also loving more generally in the ways of my service.
This is the short version. I have a longer one, less symbolic, that I will not make public. This poem is about a particular moment in my life when I confronted the pain of my own decision to love this woman. I entered into a love certain to fail, entered it to a purpose and achieved the purpose. There is no question that we loved under divine protection, that we could not have succeeded without it. It was convoluted and clandestine. We were otherwise too exposed. It took two years and a little more to accomplish the task. She had to depart as certainly as she was destined to come to me.
I would make the same choices again were I to return to that place and time. I would not attempt it now. Still I can't help but wonder. If this woman were to enter my life again at this point just the right way, as she did the last time, I would fall anew. It would be worth it. It was last time.
They Sent You Away
I took my other
life, my wolfen shape and voice
and I howled all night
along the broken
trail, bloodied red paws, limping
past our yesterdays,
past the last gray moon
of this horrified season.
I have lost your scent.
July 31, 2009 1:02 PM
Wow Christopher. There is so much here. Your two services. The love destined to fail and the success of it. The loss, none the less, and most of all, the worth.
ReplyDeleteI never really loose your scent, and sometimes i, as if by accident, come upon your bloodied paw prints in the snow.
ReplyDeletethis poem is gorgeous in that most dangerous way... it leads inwards to the places i keep secret.
ReplyDeletei loved reading this because it reminds me of how i loved like this, once.
Jozien, I try to stay near enough you can find me.
ReplyDeleteHarlequin, I stand in favor of not keeping these secrets as a matter of survival. At least for me, if I am too secret then I start to wither and then fail. It is very good to know you loved like this, I hope, more than once.
I know this call. I answered it myself once. Twice. And so it goes, when it comes at the right time, when there is the gap, when the howl finds its way, and when it is impossible not to answer.
ReplyDeleteNo regrets.
xo
erin
Yes, there can be no regrets. The choice to fall like this is about the most free act in my life. Love like this is inevitable from one of the points of view but free from several points of view. My capacity to roam around in these points of view was remarkable. That is why my poetry took off. I had an endless supply of places to look at things.
ReplyDeleteLoving you.