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