Poem for Paulette

don’t be afraid of fear;

when your body resist its own happiness,

the illness is…is not you,

defines….. and must not define you,

it is living within your living…..it is living without you,

and you are very much living without it,

it is you, and yet you are not it;

you are so much more, in so many different ways;

and yet the body comes courting as friend and betrayer,

we still love it despite its playing the role,

of failed and disappointing lover,

it seeks to bound and bind you through pain,

it seeks hegemonic harmony over your song,

imposing its ill-will on our waking, and our sleep;

just saying,

don’t be a silent witness to suffering,

but don’t cry too long either,

eyes are for seeing the hope in things,

for seeing the seed-things of hope in us;

and yet you must sometimes not share your concerns,

and care so much time for more than one;

you are/can be more than affliction,

the opposite direction of a destined despair;

be a golden promise of your(real) self,

acting and being a smile crafted in creation,

in  a place where all the peaceful waters (those worthy) wait,

being true in patience and not: “just a patient”.

she said: (in search of herself),

“amore-me-more (loving me/myself more now)”,

see her bravely taking deep breath between brackets:

(“I know me and the other person too, and I am not afraid of her”);

you can/are outlasting disappointment,

hope enters with a new found earnest loudness,

unafraid now of the sound of your own laughter,

waiting as a verb for a changing action of the heart,

time as a rescue sign restored to a proper noun,

metaphorically held at last in a lighthouse moment,

stating categorically the inside scooped to the surface,

“the restorying of my life”; she said, “will take time”;

“since this feeling is knew 2 me 2”;

a sure sign of design unbroken on the borderless page;

she fights to dream before sleeping,

“I am a witness bearing witness 2 my own 2 lives”,

“I am the sea, the storm, the ship, and the sailor 2”;

naturally there is always the whispered wish for normality,

simply doing the simple normal things,

(“I want to just eat dinner with my family”),

the oh so subtle inclination to a right of banality,

an ordinary act raised to a thing of beauty,

a wish to be a burden-less-life-formed in the arms of kinfolk,

“I try hard to keep an I on my I in I(n)dependent”;

who could really rightfully read blame in her;

or try to decipher her notes on a 2 complicated life:

“my life is my life”,

surely not a browed life,

not able to be given or lent to another life,

a life cannot be changed, worn and washed like clothes;

can’t be closeted for a time long after a present grief;

“I am myself inside, and outside of myself”,

even when beside herself is another self she misses,

in solemnity stretching its vision above the gathering crowd,

waiting for its moment, its turn, to be born;

the mind and heart are never ill,

they always will us more good than bad,

illness is a road (sometime alone, sometimes peopled),

and yet not a destination;

affirming the ever-healthy spirit,

“I vow to live fully within what I mean to live”,

never defined by lack or luck,

the most brave thoughts will join her at the beginning sea,

immersed in their refusal to be still while singing at night,

“on that day when my words swim to meet my future”;

(when the waves resist not returning,

at the moment the sun kisses the blue/green glassy surface,

and dreams float just above her fears of being alone.)

 it is then that something sacred begins to happen,

a craft on an unwavering voyage of a craft hidden in memory,

a practitioner unpracticed in the art of spiritual self-knowing,

sailing softly through an ocean holding all of the worlds tears;

“wait”, she tells them; “just you wait”

“is it now”; they question in unison born in the womb of quiet unintentionality,

(she is very near, now…),

(she picks up the threads of her life, now…..),

(she speaks to the future in ancient words, now…)

“I will weave a path that will heal everyone,

especially,

and starting with me;

I will leave no heart unopened,

especially,

and starting with my own”

                                                                                     -(Uncle)Michael A. Johnson..5/29/13