By Ana Lisa de Jong —
WITHOUT A LIGHT
Poetry brings me home.
When I have wandered directionless,
without a light,
when longings keep me circling,
lost child in the dark.
I find it beckoning,
wooing me.
Its shining, liquid words
my lighthouse on a rock.
Poetry, drawing me in
like a room lit at night.
A lantern, weaving through leaves
as filtered sunlight.
Poetry brings me in.
winding me with its reel.
Wet line working against the tide
to pull its last desperate catch to shore.
Poetry, the salvation
of those whose feelings run deep
as river salmon moving
in migration.
The soothing voice in the ear
to cause the heart to lie down.
Poetry, brings me home.
Whether home is the heights,
when too deep I’ve gone,
or the depths when I’ve forgotten
life’s meaning.
Poetry is always the answer to a need,
that never quite makes itself known,
or explains its presence,
or the absence that it magnifies.
Poetry is the magnet,
the attraction to match all objects,
that would otherwise
defeat my allegiance to goodness.
Poetry, that keeps me desiring
to match the beauty of its song,
is the voice,
which without its words to soothe and move,
the soul would echo
without a sound.
“I lost my way. I forgot to call on your name. The raw heart beat against the world, and the tears were for my lost victory. But you are here. You have always been here. The world is all forgetting, and the heart is a rage of directions, but your name unifies the heart, and the world is lifted into its place. Blessed is the one who waits in the traveller’s heart for his turning.”
Leonard Cohen
‘I once asked a bird, “How is it to fly in this gravity of darkness?” She responded: “Love lifts me!”’
Hafiz Shirazi