At Last, I Will Learn

At last, I will learn
just to take my time.
Hunched and callous eyes
snarl in cruel sight.
Angered and upward
in a storm of hate
and indifference.
I’ve let it turn lost
misremembering
by many stale words.

They drip bitter gall
poison from above
lurking ‘til they may
thaw in a good sun.
Delicate to wait
and not to break me
I take the slow death
of living broken
Until some people
wake me, and I laugh.

What a precious cost:
time, vigor, and love
to spend on comforts
and their illusions.
Life’s a play on words:
without loss…we learn
we learn loss, and grieve
we grieve loss, and strive
we strive to regain
all we’ve learned was lost.

I post things on blogs.
Hoping someone likes
If they like, they care
If they care, they hear
If the hear, they change
If they change, they grow
If they grow, they win
If they win…I win.
So I scorn my pride,
And I don’t post it.

Instead, I watch things
Fate bringing each word
—the proper word— forth.
From this destiny
It sings in its time.
I can’t dwell elsewhere
On stale words or thoughts
They’ve grown old, like me
They’re dead, like me too
Unless I let go.

There was a fresh wind
I caught its scent here
lost on a gray lake
like forgetful glass,
It watches me lose
my place mid-sentence…
Instead, I feel things,
something fresh lifts me
something smells like God
So I follow it.

Where is our heaven
and where’ve we lost it?
On what monolith
have these little arms
placed so great a land?
Teach me, one who knows
where are good pastures?
Where, the good country,
that I seek after
yet you say is here?

If here, then where now?
If not, then here how?
Why is there such a
mystery to life,
If not to compose
the true path for us?
So I do not run
I don’t close my eyes
to the terrible.
Come, Sage of Spirits…

Teach me to know and
walk the ancient ways,
before I’ve lost all
which I’ve never lost.
Before I paid all,
for things without cost.
Before I wandered
before I first yearned
come, teach me your way.
At last, I will learn.