Have You Ever Wondered

Have you ever wondered about (the Real)

The way things are

And the way things seem

And the difference

Where it goes in a moment’s forgetting

Or with the lights turned down

Or when there are two

And a spark

That can burn a heart?

 

Have you ever wondered

About the trace it leaves

In mind and body

And beyond

When it returns

In dreams so vivid

That purpose stops?

 

Have you noticed

That mind does weird things?

Throws illusions into the daylight

And grinds the complex self

To a single point of view

 

So much of who we are

What we know and do

Falling in and out of love

Reaching a breaking point

And speaking our minds or not

Occurs under this illusion

Making you wonder

What is real?

 

I am still that 8-year old boy

Silenced by a teacher’s stern look

Whose finger pressed firmly

Against her lips

Insisting

I mouth,

Not sing

Words

To a song

 

Now walking with my wife

On a less than ordinary path

Talking about writing

Hearing criticism in her voice

Carrying the burden of the unseen real

We argue

I blow air gently

Toward her third eye

And move on.

 

Have you ever wondered about the imaginary?

(1)“What the psyche needs but does not know to ask?”

Not the make believe of childhood

Or illusions of the day

And fables past,

But the way the psyche

Mirrors the widening sky

And how the mind can ascend

Through deception to discovery

And how a dream can waken us

And if awakened

Can be embodied

To guide us from real to unreal to sublime.

 

(1) James Hillman Dreams and the Underworld

November 2016