Archive for the ‘Monroe’ Category

2010-02-16 – Another cut

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

I wonder if we know what we're losing.
Tonight, in bed, the memories and feelings began to turn and haunt me.
Tomorrow, I will have all of my personal life shipped here to New Zealand.
A sad ending, another tie broken.
And then I realized how few ties there are left and how tenuous they are.
The accounting and the computers are now all that connect us.
The house, no longer my house.
Never to sit in that meditation chair she made for me again.
To pet the cats, walk down to Paradise, admire the pond in the front yard.
All cut off and unreachable.
Never to stand and read again  in the kitchen while she prepares a meal.
To sit in the TV room and enjoy a show together.
To discuss our day.
To sleep in beds just beside each other.

All these things unraveling are tearing my heart out.
All these things that were part of a marriage until death do us part.
The end of shared experience is the hardest.
The real treasure lost.
Where we live, what we have or don't have, is so much less.
One day, the last cut will sever us.
The accounting books will be closed one day and then the ebb and flow
   of all that will be lost to me.
And the computer links that let me see our place
   will be closed as well and I will be blind and lost
      to all that was there, once mine.

These lives, these tragedies, these broken hearts are real.
It doesn't get any more real than this.
As the country and western song says,
   "This ain't no rehearsal."

I feel like I am being punished for having had a dream.
And for trying to carry us into a new life.
For listening to history and the future and heeding its whisperings.
The joy of creating something new with your partner
   was lost somewhere along the way - to this terrible place.
The marriage that was suppose to be forever
   has floundered on insecurities, distrust and anger.
Am I to blame?
Perhaps.
But then so is she; tied to her fears, her need for security,
   and her anger and lack of trust.
What does it matter who is the one?
A dream is ending and every time another part is pulled away
   I feel the greatest sadness of my life gathering.
We began so well, with such intents and promises,
   to end so very poorly.
I wonder if I can survive such heartbreak.

gallagher
17 Feb 2010 - Christchurch

— Copyright 1965-2010 by Dennis Gallagher —

2013-12-06 – Dear Sister

Wednesday, December 11th, 2013
 
Dear Sister, I know you tried to grow.
   In the early days, I was deeply awe struck by your struggles. 
So much more sincere than my own dilettante musings.
   You opened me up then to the meditation room's quiet seeking
      and inspired me to make my own questing real.

I was a rough seeker; just a blunt Irishman with dreams
   far too simple to be afraid to open any door, if I could but find it.

And, in your chair beside me, you burned with dedication
   and called in the voices and the truth; session after session.
How many hours of channeling flowed through your conduit
   how many times there did you open my eyes?

Looking back now across the years and all that has happened since,
   I see what an unequal struggle it was for you.

You began so much more encumbered than I.
   Your childhood, your Karma, your inflexibilities, your isolation,
      your anger, your hurt and all your deep distrusts.

They walled you in even as you spent so many hours 
   seeking to break through.
They blocked you 
   even as you burned for release.

You sat in that chair with fierce will and dedication
   and you held the vision of the highest good for all concerned.
You read Seth and pondered the mysteries locked inside T.S. Eliot's poems
   and you filled the house with the symbols and sounds of many traditions.

And yet, Dear Sister, you've arisen from that chair un-transcendent, 
   un-opened, un-humbled and still essentially believing 
that only your will, only your hard-won defenses, only your way, 
   only your opinions and only your disdain, strength and anger could protect you.

All of these I can see now betrayed you.
    They were the very walls that kept you from breaking through.
Sweet Sister, what you tried to achieve through acts of will and dedication
   can never be done; save through the erosion of all that you held to make you safe.

There is no growth without humbling, 
   no advance without disassembly, and no new becomings without unbecoming.
And only a deep and sincere choice to allow yourself to become porous 
   to all that has hurt you and all that you can feel 
      can free you from those things that impede your realization.

gallagher
06Dec2013

— Copyright 1965-2013 by Dennis Gallagher —

2005-10-22 – Kato’s dream

Wednesday, June 28th, 2017
 
I dreamt of Kato - five years on -
walking by the old house through the rusting autumn leaves
limping with one fore paw especially sore
but good natured and loving to the very end.
 
We were playing - with me hiding and him slowly seeking -
I walked through the leaves by the creek below the house
thinking he would see me, but he was slow
and I made it to my hiding place
but he sensed me then and came direct.
 
I saw him awkwardly trying to come down a slope
and he fell and rolled but stood again
still happy in the search.
 
There was an old man there who greeted Kato
and walked with him to where I stood from my hiding place
and he said I should say hello to "this wonderful dog".
 
I woke then and the loss and the memory
filled my eyes with tears.
 
Kato, Dear Kato - How I loved that dog without reservation
and how good natured and loving he always was in return
I pray I may find him and Misha and Panda on the other side.
 
Five years, and Kato's loss can still make me wake in tears
love is such a beautiful and painful thing.
Be well, beloved Kato.

gallagher
22Oct05
Monroe

— Copyright 1965-2017 by Dennis Gallagher —