Rebirth

In a relationship with a parent
that doesn’t quite work we are constantly like
a mechanism that reaches a point
where another gear should engage …
It's like a design fault we carry around
and reproduce in later life.

The infant impulse is to blame,
to demand our unmet need;
but a mature perspective shows us
that such incongruity
makes a first-class tool for seeing
into the nature of life itself.

I kept Mama at bay because
her wish for a shared love deluged me,
drowning my young awareness in what
could have nurtured my growing life;
so that I became a body
sinking where I should have swum.

Here we see how karma works
over successive generations.
My mother looked for that great love,
that one enduring incandescence
which every woman craves and no man
ever truly understands –

she wanted especially to live throu me.
She did not see how the same boat
could not have rescued both of us.
I lit out and swam to shore.
but I'm not sure she ever did,
marooned at the mercy of the sea.

I've heard of a therapy in my dreams
where parents and children swim together
on the current of their eyes,
borne upstream on natural love
that comes when two are willing to
voyage on this waterless river.

With human eyes we could not do this,
but now I sense a dam of blessings
tower above me. Keeping focus
on her eyes I take a block
and all cascade around me like
heaven-scented butterflies.

The gift: to live within this state.
The challenge: to accept an angel
whose energies I so long rejected.

I find with delightful terror I’m still
alive! The wave broke over me
leaving a covering of stardust and rose petals.