[lit-ideas] Another poem for morning

From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 14 May 2006 10:45:25 -0700
 

                        All my garments smell of myrrh

 

         I woke one morning while the dew still clung 

         To my roses like a glistening halo, 

         And a mist hovered about my gold fish pond   

         Like the aura of a nymph caught away from her wood 

         By the first light of the dawn.  I yawned    

         And wondered if perhaps I might be God,

 

         For what, thought I, could be greater than this good

         I find welling up in gushes fair to make my eyes shine?

         There have been times I have ached for all life

         And not merely mankind, and my eyes were wet 

         With the feel of it.  I can look about me 

         On almost any day and sense what is good or bad.

 

         It is a gift I have, and it is always there:

         To have a feeling when a thing is right

         And another if it's wrong.  I've always known

         The evil from the good and so have wondered

         Whether there is more to me than meets my eye.

         If I but thought it out perhaps this world would fade

 

         And I might sail through space 

         As a disembodied god: to arc past Pluto

         Might be a simple thing could I but get it right,

         The right thoughts, so to speak, or "faith"

         If you must have it so.  Did not Jesus walk

         Upon the sea and go through walls? So why not I?

 

         Turning away, I stretched, then felt my morning's beard,

         And as I walked I felt a stiffness climb my bones

         Suggesting this life's limitations.  No one yet 

         Has lived forever that I have known; yet certainly

         Such beauty must not disappear forever.  

         These lovely sighs and the good I've felt

 

         Must not be squelched as though 

         Someone had squashed a bug.  It would be cruel

         To end this life short of eternity.

         For I have looked within and seen

         An endless river, a river of life,

         And a tree beside it that grows forever.

         

         As I turn my head I sense another pain,

         Do I grow older? I must set this thought

         Aside, it is too hard to rely upon 

         My feelings when my head thus aches.

         I swallow aspirin, and set all thought aside

         As I continue shaving, scraping my image.
[lit-ideas] Another poem for morning

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