Ubuntu

From infant's feet padding softly

on the rugs of hearth and home,

we learned the wrongs of the world

through the giants who kept us fed and clothed,

and, if we were lucky,

embraced and held,

and nurtured when we fell and

grazed the edges of our fragile forms.

We learned happiness and hate,

smiles and frowns,

sadness, joy, anger and envy.

And when wrong doings flowed through our hands,

we may have felt the harsh crack of a whip,

or sharp sting of an angry word

and the hatred of one who was stroking our hair just moments earlier.

What did this do to our insides?

Is that where we learned to repress

all that wanted to come through

this divine expression of the soft light

of a cosmic spark,

from a star burning so bright,

it would warm a thousand worlds

in the cold, dark of infinite space?

Is that where we learned to deny

the heart that whispers to the trees,

the rocks, the rivers and streams?

To reject the playful voice

who chattered to the worms of earth below,

the damselflies and doves of sky above,

and the tadpoles of the waters,

as they grew their feet,

so they could emerge to become

the frog in the pocket of an innocent

young child,

yet to be torn from the woods and the wild.

Was the guilt and shame that we bear today,

hidden behind the caring smiles of those giants of old,

as they carried their loneliness in quiet desperation,

the wound passed down from ten thousand generations

of ancestral plight, facing the power and might

of tyrants long dead,

who wove their stories into the fabric of the tapestries of our lives?

The other is wrong, they said! Let them bear the guilt!

Let them be separate and suffer the fate,

that the churches and temples decree

will be a life of sorrow and sin,

and a death lived in hell without ending.

Let those who retained their visions

of innocent dreams and heartfelt streams

of consciousness from the Great Mother's breast,

burn at the stake and be a reminder to all

that wildness and freedom is not the way.

So, today, when hatred fills another's eyes,

and anger spews forth towards my heart,

I remember the whip's lash and the painful cries,

as ropes burn my neck and flames lick my sides.

And I submit. I give way. I allow the rage of another to stitch my mouth and the trembling

from deep in my core to rise and rent and rail

against the inner walls of my self-built jail.

I sit, watching the guilt wrap my form in heaviness,

and the fear tear at my body and pull on my mind.

I am wrong! I did wrong! My clan is wrong,

my colour is wrong, my humanness....is wrong.

There is no redemption from this place.

There is no salvation as I sit in this space.

I am so behind and will be last in this human race.

These are the stories my wound wants to tell,

as it winds around my throat and restricts the yell.

I am lost and alone, abandoned and exiled from all that was home,

and even though, or so I am told,

I should not pay heed to those who scold,

I somewhere believe that what people think,

is important for the self who swims or sinks.

For if others believe that I am bad,

there is no escape from a mind that is mad.

In those moments of complete psychosis,

fear wrings me out like a wet rag,

purpose leaves me in a state of perpetual weakness

and there is only half-hearted effort to force

me to my feet and take one last, lingering look

around my world in the hope of finding solace,

and that tiny crack in the veil of my deluded state

that lets in the light to shine on a forgotten heart.

And I find it. Here's the pause, and here's the crack, deep inside.

I see that I believe another can abandon me,

even though every other in this world is a cosmic mirror

showing me all the places of me I've yet to know.

In the midst of the delusion,

I am reaching out to the other,

pleading and compromising the integrity of my vessel,

solely to ensure that I am 'OK' in their eyes,

when I'm simply not OK in my own.

It is I who abandon myself,

and I who thinks I am wrong.

And rather than berate myself as I've done a thousand times before,

I remember the child and the frog in a pocket

and a dragonfly's dream,

drifting on the light of irridescent wings,

with innocence as armour and the majesty of kings

for a sword held aloft, not to slash and slay,

but to point to the rings

of forgiveness that circle a sun and a moon

that shine their light on all,

no matter their fortune.

And with that I pivot, and turn on the spot

to see myself as the one who's part of this plot.

That I may rest a hand on my back

and connect with the one who sees only lack.

To reassure that child that they won't be left,

they won't be whipped or burnt or bereft,

that they did good in bringing divine will's dream

into the heart of the Venus stream.

And to remind them that God is not up in the sky,

nor is evil below amidst pain's outcry.

They are here amongst our kith and our kin,

the stones, the brooks, the childlike grin

of all who greet each new day,

as darkness recedes and the sun comes to play.

The poppies and deer,

Great Oak and lake's clear,

rye grass and foxglove,

boulder and goat,

all hide the ink of Great Mother's love note,

which reminds each one of us who feels so alone,

that these wounds inside and their fears can be shown,

how to turn to the Mother and Father's face,

and feel how gentle is their loving embrace.

And see in those features, the eyes and the smile,

my own face gazing back, and that of the child's.

A spotlight's not needed to find my self-worth,

the praise of a million would not bring re-birth.

All I needed, was to recognize the shine

beneath the tarnish that coats this diamond of mine,

and gently allow this soft warm glow,

to reflect on you all and let you know,

that you are that part of me I've yet to show

the love that was once denied and stopped your flow.

You are the stream, the rock and river,

the ocean, the birds, and beings that slither.

The stones - granite, emerald, diamond and lime,

blue stone, chalk and the sands of time.

You're the smell of the air after a storm,

and the fit of a favorite coat well worn.

You are the mountain, and the boundless sky,

you're the Eagle's gift and all that flies.

And as you soar to the sky's airy embrace,

the arcs of your path you will turn and face

and see that road as it spirals your core,

along with every event and the pain they caused.

No longer a mess of dots to be joined,

nor misunderstood cares or achievements purloined.

but a true constellation of stars in the gloom,

lighting the boundless dark space of the cosmic womb.