You try too hard to reach the sublime pitch
But life, you know, is not like that at all,
The worst is aiming to avoid the ditch,
The best is that which happens to us all.
While shadows crowd around the looming day
And from despair there seems no place to hide,
Unless there is some pediment to pay,
The light is waiting there the other side.
Reaching for the stars is fair enough
And makes you feel a whole lot better too,
The heart be light although the going rough,
At best keep step, up with the leading few.
The goal? Ah, there’s the rub. What can you do
To convince yourself that what you do is right?
When doing right is not the inner you
But something else that hides the inner light.
Just be. Just be.It needs no brains or skill –
The inner calm that shelters self from all
The fears and dreads that circle round and will
Evaporate to nothing actual.
And though it be a million years away
before you recognise your precious gift,
The first foot on that waiting path one day
You will set, and from bondage cast adrift.
July 1995