Bewilderment - Poem

I'm such a cheat. In the sense of the blogging ideal of stream of consciousness. In the sense of the promise of 'nowness' that these fora put out. For sometimes I post poems I've written a while ago, even years ago. Whatever their merit, these poems seem to want an airing, and so I let them, unjudged by any poetocracy. But here's something that wrote itself today. Sometimes I wish I could just stay silent. The Sufis teach not to blab about everything going on inside, to let it well and fill until it spills. The blabbing can even work against you, diminishing the gift. Maybe this poem, then, is spillage. I checked my pulse: in the spirit of 'wa amma bi ni'mati rabbika fahaddith' (And your Lord's blessings proclaim) I'm sharing it.

Sometimes, when you are caught, stuck - of course its all a perceived state - you feel suffocated. No one's throttling you of course. Even as you do your pranayama, within a few minutes of having disappeared into your breath, the stuckness reasserts. A diligent 360 degree perusal leaves you in utter bewilderment. The stuckness looms magnificent. You are crushed by the awesomeness of your total inability and incapacity. Majestic marvelousness! No matter which way you approach it, no matter what you throw at it, no matter how much attar of Oud and Rose, sometimes, the only way to be with it is to be IN it. Just be in it... and die.

Bewilderment

Bewilderment

a sacrament

to the lotus-petals

waiting in ivory

for permission

to unfurl from

cornered rigid

oxygen-free no-space

between a rock and a hard place

eyes wide blind

Die before you die

implode the geode

of the marooned ‘me’

disappearing dissolving

until yielding

the scent of satori

rises blossoming

a harmonic tonic

of saffron gold

luminous ionic

a chronicle foretold.