The End of the Line

I am still raw, and at the
same time well-cooked, and
burnt to a crisp!
             --  Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)


THE END OF THE LINE

During his life he'd often cursed
the arrogance of those clouds--

monoliths, so callously ignoring
the pleading of human beings

or else chucking down
lightening bolts
without apparent provocation...

He cursed until
that December morning
he stood waiting
in the graveyard--

the moment when the sunlight caught
a little wisp of cloud
issuing forth with his breath

and in a bolt, he realized
those gods also dwelt
devilishly inside him--

but of course--!--
how could they rule him
from so far away--!--

he now felt much better about himself:
he must have been an important man
to rate such powerful attention--
yes, his gods had been strong medicine--
poking his eyes, twisting his nose--
often, stepping on his toes
when he desperately wished
to go forward--!--

then later, kicking his backside
when he wanted to hang back--

tricking him
down cold dark alleys--
pitching him
to the hungry fire--

yes, he'd been burnt
again and again
yet he felt he still
wasn't done--!--

even at the end, still not done--!

Now he saw how
the worst of it
was as good
as the best--

there were no longer any lines--
no divisions
between one and the other

between one breath and the next--
between your breath and mine--

no longer any lines
between whatever he believed
himself to be
and whatever he'd believed
his gods to be--
the gods that'd loved him so:

so mercilessly--

so blessedly--

he saw it altogether--but who
was he now--?--
as the line between
the part of him that knew
and the part of him that did not know
finally dissolved completely...

like a vapor, dissipating...

© 2012, Michael R. Patton
my dreaming steps