You realize the feeling of being in your retiring days,
not giving up but noticing let-up, and you recognize,
distant memories seem more significant now.
You remember being three. You're pushed in a swing
by your big brother. So wildly he pushes, yet you so
trust his intention and the swing to hold you up that
you laugh aloud from a heart so glad, a world so full
of delight, a family so loving. Communion with all
you face, grants buoyant embrace. Knowing no want,
you drink from the cup of joy.
You remember being seven. You're awake for the first
time to light emanating from the walls of your room,
flowing through furniture, making all about you rise
fluid and free and friendly. The light looks so bright
and feels so warm, you notice only a love that settles
the spirit emerging. No need for God, no notice of
godly influence, you drink from the cup of compassion.
You remember being ten. In the wake of the war of the
era, your beloved brother becomes terrified of his world.
He turns for relief to substance abuse, self-abuse really.
That affects brain current and the bearing of his being.
The light you once noticed with such delight turns dim
to your sight. As a deep soul connection is threatened,
you drink from the bottomless cup of psychic pain.
You remember being fourteen. Every fear becomes
anxiety, free-floating, energetic, erratic, erotic. You
manage self-possession by activities of spirit, some clear,
others cryptic, all transformational, now you see. In time
light things come more intense, preceded by great effort
of determination, discipline, doubtless trust in the ocean
of grace of being. You drink from the cup of freedom.
Today at 57 the liquid light yet alive in the rising and
dying of things of form comes with increasing clarity.
You note anew, beyond the thin planks of the world's
gauzy portals, there hangs out a void of such dense
delight, it is not to be believed, it is to be tasted. At ease
in your retiring days you drink from that empty cup of
release and you notice, you are that cup.
Aftertaste
In view of The Venerable Veritable Void of Naught,
everything rises as its incense. By virtue of the void
all hangs together yet nothing can hang there save
the feeling of the being of being.*
