Ai, my mortality gives me such an ache sometimes.
This little face, Chris,
growing and changing under my hands
and my memories talking to me
of people and places seen … and gone.
Is my awakening only to make me more aware
of how mortal and transient we are?
Rose is here … and Lise
and all the books on my shelves.
Moments the authors took serious.
Poppies arising in the fields
and perishing
in a never ending cycle of seasons.
Like the yeast that rises,
or the surf that churns against the rocks,
we are the froth
of the advancing front of life.
Our brief moments
transfixing us for a lifetime
with the fate of passing forms.
But it is no less.
That I’ve watched the lines come
and cross Rose’s face and heart.
That I’ve seen families and wars
come and go.
Felt the ache of love,
and the pain of heartbreak,
and watched my youth pass
and my dreams mellow
against reality.
Our visions clear of the illusions
and,behind, we find ourselves
stark naked
and dressed in animal skins.
And we see our fates written
in the generations rising
and perishing around us.
There is no exit here.
Save, through our hearts.
In the killing fields of life
we wait in the sun for the harvest
and mistake the joy of our growth
for the promise of divinity.
All of it!
Youth, joy, clarity, vision,
mortality, growth, love, pain
and death
merely outline our hearts.
For it is with our hearts
that we must face these things.
For it is with our hearts
that we experience living
and it is through the heart’s
deep belief
in its spiritual seed-ship
that we can pass the gates
of this flaming and remorsless
reality.
Our mortality can be seen
as the profound price
of spiritual realization.
That love and pain
and our passage
from youth to death
is the food of Gods
seeking birth.
So we must love, must risk,
must dream and age
and see ever deeper
through these illusions.
We must witness fairly
and act impeccably
as we travel this road.
We must weather away
against our experiences
and burn for life
against implacable death.
We must love each other
with compassion and fervor
as we melt
in these furnaces of time.
And we must walk tall
in our belief
in our own divinity
straight through every storm,
every distraction, every illusion,
every love and attachment and passion.
Every realization and mood and insanity
straight into our deaths.
For, as Gods seeking birth
we can do no less
until we have loved,
known, experienced it all.
Gallagher
15 July 86
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —