10 years ago this month
Feb. 26th, 2005 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompson Stephan
At the end he needed so little from me.
Certainly not my tears, my sympathy.
At the end his eyes were clear and deep,
already piercing the clouds separating us
from that place beyond dreams, hopes, fears,
pitying us because we could not yet see.
Lightened of greed, and envy, and regret,
he wore our sorrows like a cloak of feathers,
his smile radiant with sadness, the exquisite
illusion of the world fading, fading--here
this moment, then gone. He needed nothing
I had to give, except love. And all he had
to give was love . . . and a beautiful pain.
Then that, too, was gone, and only love remains.
###
Dead Man’s Zen
My dead friend wrote in the margin of my book:
“Nothing’s your fault, and you are responsible
for all of it. Maturity.”
The wolf stared at me and I got scared.
I cried, thinking my time was gone,
but time still ticked in my heart.
Time was not my problem.
What to do with it was my problem;
how to use it well, how to be used by it
and not mind so much.
The wolf still stares,
hungry, unapologetic, bluntly assessing
whether my tottering legs can outrun it.
But wolves aren’t only hungry for flesh.
Often it is for honesty:
sifting, weighing, natural selection.
They want authority and submission,
a leader to follow, or a pack to follow them,
arranged alphabetically.
They do not accept excuses.
They do not put up with lies
and self-delusion.
Their gleaming eyes
know when you are a fraud,
and they seek your weakness.
They hamstring the liars,
bring them to the ground
and slowly devour pretensions.
Nothing’s your fault.
You are responsible for all of it.
Maturity.
He’s in his Heaven.
You’re down here with the wolves.
So be straight with yourself--
and get to work.
At the end he needed so little from me.
Certainly not my tears, my sympathy.
At the end his eyes were clear and deep,
already piercing the clouds separating us
from that place beyond dreams, hopes, fears,
pitying us because we could not yet see.
Lightened of greed, and envy, and regret,
he wore our sorrows like a cloak of feathers,
his smile radiant with sadness, the exquisite
illusion of the world fading, fading--here
this moment, then gone. He needed nothing
I had to give, except love. And all he had
to give was love . . . and a beautiful pain.
Then that, too, was gone, and only love remains.
###
Dead Man’s Zen
My dead friend wrote in the margin of my book:
“Nothing’s your fault, and you are responsible
for all of it. Maturity.”
The wolf stared at me and I got scared.
I cried, thinking my time was gone,
but time still ticked in my heart.
Time was not my problem.
What to do with it was my problem;
how to use it well, how to be used by it
and not mind so much.
The wolf still stares,
hungry, unapologetic, bluntly assessing
whether my tottering legs can outrun it.
But wolves aren’t only hungry for flesh.
Often it is for honesty:
sifting, weighing, natural selection.
They want authority and submission,
a leader to follow, or a pack to follow them,
arranged alphabetically.
They do not accept excuses.
They do not put up with lies
and self-delusion.
Their gleaming eyes
know when you are a fraud,
and they seek your weakness.
They hamstring the liars,
bring them to the ground
and slowly devour pretensions.
Nothing’s your fault.
You are responsible for all of it.
Maturity.
He’s in his Heaven.
You’re down here with the wolves.
So be straight with yourself--
and get to work.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-26 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-27 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-27 07:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-27 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-27 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-27 11:03 am (UTC)