Guanyin

Guanyin

–

Guanyin please 

Let me curl up on your knees

And cry

I haven’t been able to crack this damn wall 

For a span of moons, 

And why?

My head is like a valley half full of water

One side drenched in ecocidal slaughter

The other half empty, bone dry.

–

It’s held by something 

I don’t remember constructing

Must have mortar in my bones

And stones in my shoes

So no tears flow.

–

I take that stone out and hold it.

Walk and walk upriver to resolve it.

One small stone in the right location

Can change the course of a river. 

That’s my motivation 

As I march past the valley of my unspent tears 

Up into the highlands trying to find the source of my fears 

All the dreams I held on to throughout all these years 

I have to face them, and see them for what they are

Cardboard spaceships taped together to chase a neutron star

–

The flood will have to stay

Waiting for the waking of my inner ent

Who views the death of his kin

With a grief and rage up-pent 

Who watches the lungs burn 

Uncoupling us from the oxygen 

For which our cells silently yearn 

We need to cry.

But under every bridge

Is an acrid troll and everything 

Seems howlingly, scarily funny.

And sad,

But I can’t cry yet, it’s getting sunny

Just a soft smile and a slight droop in my shoulders

Finish the paperwork all neatly organised in folders 

As Pandora’s last gift slips away.

–

There was a minute there

Guanyin, When I was walking in the fernery,

Reflecting on the subliminal ternary 

I saw a bench, placed there, to remember

Some ordinary man who had been a consistent member 

Of some ordinary society.

I thought about his little life, over now, and mine. 

Whether there would be ferns in such variety, 

Or trees to make benches from

In the world to come.

I felt like I almost 

Could have cried.

But it slipped away when I tried

When I looked its way it took fright

Like cornered eyes in the night.

–

I feel a tear in my eye now 

Guanyin, but it’s only dust.

My emotions are like an old lock 

Tight with rust.

I’m not enjoying this ‘cut off’ from my feelings

The notion that men don’t cry 

Leave’s no space for healing

It’s a myth that must die 

and die inside of me 

This valley of tears will one day burst free.

And douse the forest fires

Of mankind’s funeral pyres.

But the biblical flood that pours from my eyes 

Will no doubt add to the sea-level rise.

–

Joe Blogs, Aug. 2019

–

Image by nyochi from Pixabay