Part 2 of Messages from the Edge

by E. J. Ward
It is happening now
As the sun swings overhead in its solstice
Suspended
The Old dies
Aching
Crippled by too many questions
Swollen with too many answers
Knowing too much
Understanding too little.

Still dying
In a state of unknowing
The New starts to breathe
Uncomprehending
Suspended
Asking nothing
Knowing nothing
Barely inhabiting its own space.

Dazed with unknowing

It opens its eyes
And stares at the sunlight
The hanging star of the summer solstice
Expecting nothing
Awaiting nothing
Knowing nothing
Being.

This is the Land of Let-go-Bad

Between the mountains and the sea
This is the gap where yesterday
Supplanted by tomorrow
Dreams sleeplessly
A dreamless sleep of peace.

Surprised by unspoken promises fulfilled

Dazed by unsought-for gifts
This is the Good Old Days
Days of unmerited grace
The pause
Before the next thing begins.

And an uneasy suspicion is born

That we have been too clever by half.

This is uncomfortable
But is it dying or being born?
Is it death throes or birth pangs?
And what is the difference?
And what are the rules?

Supposing there are no rules?

Suppose we live in the moment freely
Without guidance
Without hope or despair
Knowing nothing
Understanding nothing
Innocently?

We watch the little journey of the bee

Methodically improvising flower by flower
And eat his honey.
A motivated insect that does not know us
And has never been introduced
Gives us such pleasure
Because we raid its home and steal its food.
What can we make of that?

We see leaves being born in spring

The tiny unfoldment of painful buds
Fragile tender sweet and edible
Hurtled by April winds
Burnt by the thudding sun of August
Only to lose their grip
The will to hang on tight
That gave meaning to their lives as a TREE
And whirl into the void
Dead on the rustling ground of autumn.
How comfortable is that?

Unbearable the sweetness of the honeysuckle

The tenderness of falling rain
The sobbing crimson death of the sun
Crashing into the forest
The senseless cooing of inevitable doves
The softest sound on earth
Mother of all comforts
Making the sweetness bearable.
What have we done to merit this?

We are ripening like apples in the golden sun of autumn

Mellow and sweet
Swollen with intoxicating juices
Ready to let go
And yet not quite

We have come this far theres no going back now

But no going forward either
We are not even waiting
Just smiling slightly
Swinging in space
Sailing in the moment

Some day one day something will happen

Something effortless and necessary
That takes us with it
Unresisting with a little smile
For the crooning dove has put us all to sleep
And no-one will notice that War has already broken out.

This Peace hangs ripe and heavy in the air like fruit
Golden and soft
Breathing and shimmering
So thick you can slice it
As if the world has just been made and God is looking at it.

Is this what He meant then?

What He had in mind?
This dense and stunning consciousness
This awareness
The astounding energy of this stillness?

This now will never come again

We cannot keep it till later
We cannot bottle it
Or buy it
Or sell it
Or bury it
It is a gift
Because we dont deserve it
(Or what are gifts for?)

Nothing moves but the tiny stirring of insects

Birds are stunned
The tranquilising dove is stupefied
And the dazed world has stopped in wonder
What has happened?
Should it go round the other way?

This chalice may not come to us again

Let us drink from it now and remember in days to come.

In the time of our innocence

We believed in the simplicities
That Light conquers Dark
Or vice versa
That Good and Bad are distinct colours
And that naming things made them different.

But this golden autumn is a new spring

The new is being born before the old has died
Its time has come
Names have not changed but things are not the same
The old is done.

The path unfolds before us

Whether we wish it or not
Whether we trust it or not
And it leads to certain death
Because all paths do.

But we listen to the calling dove of autumn

And hear the voice of spring
We listen to the croaking of the frogs
And hear a new life begin
And let the inevitable sing.

These things are not chosen

They are not foreseen
They arrive when it is time
And make themselves
Inevitably as sunshine on the water
As wind in a clear sky
They do not lie.

As we give birth to ourselves

Tomorrow is born today
This is the new order
And we give way.

We are strong
We are indomitable
We will go down with the ship
Even if that means taking the ship with us.
We have anticipated this
And sing out loud with streaming eyes
Aching for the end
For the promised answer to the unasked question
(For if we knew the question
We would not need the answer).

But maybe there is no answer

And perhaps if we knew the question
We would not need one anyway
So we should be looking for the question
Not the answer.

But that would not heal the aching would it

Would not heal the need to sing out loud
With streaming eyes to confront the end
To be strong and indomitable
And go down with the ship.

(Taking the ship with us.)

Forgiveness is not in our gift

Even if we wish it
We have only the option of letting go
Of letting go the offender and the offence
So the anguished soul can meet itself in time
As all must do.

These groans are not our business

We have no power to withhold or punish
No power to redeem or justify
Such things do not concern us.

What has been done carries the deed with it

Carries the absolution or the horror
Of endless repetition of it
In retribution for the first time round.

Helpless and powerless to affect the outcome

We do not know the ending of the story
For we have sins of our own to commit
And are busy elsewhere.

Only Love has the solution

For Love does not perceive the crime
Does not exact justice or compassion
Does not weigh right with wrong
Is not concerned with feasance and malfeasance.

But Love may not be in our gift either

Even if we wish it.

If we wish to survive
We must go out
And come in again by a different door
Leaving our rubbish behind.

Oh but our rubbish is so interesting

So vibrant and remarkable
Especially that pile there we call our suffering
We cant survive without that

And we cannot be asked to throw away our crutches

Our worries and alarms
The daily struggles to remain intact
That give us our identity.

And what is it like out there?

Will we need extra blankets?
A warm pullover?
Shall we get enough to eat?

And anyway whos going to feed the cat?

Mow the lawn?
Water the plants?

You see it cant be done

Its a nice idea this survival of yours
But were better off as we are
We know the ropes you see
We know how to stay alive.

(Ah but the rubbish smells awful doesnt it

The wrongs we carry are heavy and hard to bear
Diminishing us and making us ineffective
Only their heaviness can give them meaning
Are we redeemed by this back-breaking labour
Or by giving it up
To come in through a different door?)

Its a premature birth but it cannot be helped

From a deep dark place we have seen the full moon
And lost our reason.

We open our eyes to encounter the brightness

Dazed and nonplussed
We open our minds to greet in person
The largest face we know.

What does it want?

We would sing if we could
We would dance if we could
Or go mad if we could
But we know a God when we see one
And are struck dumb.

Our celestial moon has emerged from eclipse

Bigger and better and sadder and wiser
It rolls through the sky as if it owns it
Our new improved Moon
Our born-again Moon
With its picture in all the papers.

The Fulfilment of all that is wished

Is not wished
But a deliverance from wishing
Where wants are not satisfied
For there are no wants
And satisfaction is a lack of wanting
Where space is filled by emptying
By loosening
By losing and not finding
By letting the leaf go with the river
Because there is no loss
Just as there is no finding.

What is willed is not of our making

Not of our design
But a discovery
A finding without seeking
A disclosure of things not hidden
A revelation of what is known
A story already told.

This is no surprise
Only a confirmation of itself
Unexpected because not suspected
Realised in the moment of fulfilment
Accomplished because it is time.

Only Time knows this story

A story already told but not repeated
Already known but not acknowledged
Because it is not recognized
And we do not know it when we see it.

This is our loss and our gain

The finding of what was not lost
Is our reward for not looking
So fulfilment cannot be wished.

We must be very careful now

There is no margin of error
For it is already too late
The new is born before the old has died
And this is the new order.

We reap what we have sown

Confidence
Optimism
And blind belief
Fruits of arrogance and immaturity
Have taught us badly
For we taught ourselves.

There are other teachers

Older than Time itself
But we must quieten the delirium
Subdue the bounce and the credulity
To hear these voices
For our confidence has made us hard of hearing.

(And Robespierre we remember

Died on the instrument he implemented
The pride of the New Order
Spreading terror by decapitation
It was the latest thing
The Scientific Age endorsing the Enlightenment.)

We have forgotten who these Teachers are

But children know them
For they can still look into the eyes of animals
And see themselves
Can listen to the gossiping of birds
And hear the symphony wind and leaves and trees
Miracles we take for granted
Tidying them up
Treading them underfoot
Annihilating them with our latest thing
Forgetting that we too may be
Victims of our own invention.

And an uneasy suspicion remains

That we have been too clever by half.

Its true we have been clever

Weve found a way to amuse our fingers
And abuse our minds
A trip into the unknown known
Where everything exists
And people we never heard of
Tell us things we have no need to know
About a world we never knew existed
It frees us and enslaves us
This truth that lies deep down inside
That everything exists for us to find
Lies we believe because weve looked for them

They warned us about this

This fruit of the Tree of Knowledge
That bites back
Leaving us hungry always wanting more

We knew a thing or two back then

We wrote the book
Our Stone-Age minds programmed to lift the stone
And find underneath another stone
Just waiting to be lifted
A perilous descent into the void

The game was on

Nothing could stop us now
We had the taste for it
This thirst for more than data
For the knowing not the knowledge
For the seeking not the finding
For always looking further than there is

Drunk with the thirst for thirst

For the unknown thing just round the corner
Underneath the stone
Out of control
On a roll
Thrilled by the prospect of collision
That might release the one thing we are seeking
That stops us in our tracks

A definitive confrontation with ourselves

Old Age Yes!

A Benediction
A Blessing at twilight
For the night draws in
The great blue blanket of the dusk
Yes yes yes!

Stiffening joints
Stained with pain
Aching bones
Rigidity
Forming the chrysalis
Yes!

Metamorphosis
Yes! Oh yes!

We are becoming soup

Dreaming our bedtime stories
Minute by singing minute
Hour by swinging hour
Pendulum dance
Yes!

Now we see everything

The hair vein on the flower
The interminable journey of the clouds
Tremulous sunlight caught in trees
Teasing us
Dancing for us
Yes!

Shadows lengthen
Discreetly
Drowsily
For the long day is over and the night is come
Sweet dreams
And even sweeter memories
Yes yes yes oh yes!

This is the doorway

The Threshold
When we are not through it we call it Pain

We must know it leads somewhere

For Im going through it we say
Expecting to come out the other side

Hes really going through it

Means he is really suffering
Stuck in the doorway poor soul
Jammed

Then Hes come through it we say

As if hes emerged somewhere
But where is he?

They tell us that Pain is a symptom

A message from ourselves
That something is wrong
Something that needs attention
Diagnosis
Pills
A visit to the Doctor
Major surgery perhaps?

But supposing this message is really a reminder

That we are mortal
That we are complex
That there is more to us than meets the eye

That it is time to meet someone

Someone whos been with us all our lives
Who draws our breath
Governs our heart beat
Adjusts the circulation of our blood
Mediates between hot and cold
Between fast and slow
Tenderness and anger
Courage and despair
Grief and love
It is time to meet ourselves

And this is the person who can save us

Who knows how to get through the door

THE REMAKING OF THE SOUL

And I said Is this Dying

And they said
No it is the Unmaking of the Soul

An Unmaking through Grief

Through Sorrow
And through Loss
Through loss of Sound
Loss of Self
And loss of Meaning
An Unmaking through Silence
Through Space
And through Nothingness

It is Unmaking and Remaking

A Remaking through Music
Silence Remade
A Remaking through Stillness
Sound Remade
A Remaking through Being
Nothingness Remade

It is not Death
It is a Remaking of the Soul

They said You may enter now

You are remade
And I entered

So this is who I am
An old reborn
Already wise
With things forgotten

Did I believe things

Had I the nerve
The energy
The effrontery to do that

The past recedes to vanishing point

I do not wave
For it is already out of sight
And I remember nothing
I have no agenda now
No to-do-list
Nothing in my diary
(What is a diary)

Have I brought nothing then

No lifestyle
No habits
No routines
To prove that I have lived

Have I done nothing then

Fought no battles
Engaged in no disputes
Achieved no resonance
No echo to my name
(What is my name)

I know one thing only

This me here now
Is a place I have always wished to live
And now I live here

And they said

Now you are remade
Perhaps you will become a better person

And I said
I am more likely to become the person I am
But more so

And they said

You are drunk

And I said I am not drunk

But the person I am reserves the right to be drunk
If she wishes

And they said

You ARE drunk
And you are a bad person

And I said
I may be a bad person
But it has taken me a lifetime to get here
And a little drink from time to time
Helps me survive the Apocalypse that surrounds me

And they said This is Hyperbole

And I said It is better than Preaching
And they said You are so Rude
And I said Rude Yourself
And they said Clearly you need Remaking again

And I said
Before you start knocking the shit out of me once more
Perhaps you could remind me of the purpose of this exercise

And they said

We should have thought that was obvious
It is to make you into a better person

And I said
But it doesnt seem to be working does it
Why dont you try being nice for a change

And they said

Oh we will be nice to you
Once you have earned it
Once you have shown you are a better person

And I said
Suppose I dont want to be a better person

And they said

Then we will keep knocking the shit out of you
Until you do.

So I said I admit that Im an unruly woman

Given to tantrums and hyperbole
Leading a life of noisy desperation
Violent and foul-mouthed

I said I admit I am embarrassing

Over-emphatic and delusional
Falling in love with dead Italian poets
Demanding they love me back

I said I admit I am ebullient

Unseemly in a person of my years
And should for Gods Sake quieten down a bit
And take it easy
But Life has me by the Throat I said
And wakes me up at night to hug the Moon
And shows me the underside of things forbidden
That make my blood sing

And they said Thats all very well

But when are you going to do something
When are you going to stop boring us all to death
With your indefatigable charisma
And grow up

And I said This Remaking of the Soul

Is Dying Remade
It is the Underside of Things
The Soul cannot Unmake
It IS Death
It really IS

(copyright E. J. Ward 2017)

(Follow this thread in The New Order)