There is a road that leads you onwards
In the journey of your life
And you’ll find that if you stay on it,
Following faithfully the signs,
It will take you in a circle
To the source where you began,
And all the ills you suffered
And all the wrongs you did
Can be seen anew as to what they were
In this place of second chances.
The catharsis of forgiving or forgiveness received,
Purged of accumulated guilt
Is like a self-administered Eucharist
Bringing you full understanding
And a new born harmony
Where your hands can join with childrens’ hands.
When the strange values of the World
Crashed into your puny defences
Swamping, seemingly forever,
Those careful, precious dreams
You were building up
You learned to play the new games,
Denying all knowledge of a deeper self
Because you could see that everyone else
Was doing the same thing
And it seemed at the time
To be the only way to go.
But can you see now
That even if it was inevitable
It distorted what you wanted to be
And suppressed so much that coming to terms
With a loss without a compensating gain
Brought with it in the irresistible flood
All those new feelings of the future,
Drowning those intensely sweet moments
Of the focused here and now?
You wanted to give them so little
because they claimed so much
Until they pointed out in their arrogance
That it was only a cover for their insecurity
And then you gave them all you had.
If the runes are spread too wide
The nit-pickers move in
Talking of aerie-faerie waffle,
And if too narrow, the visionaries
dismissively speak of strait-jacket thinking.
Just where is that place that can unite
The World with its sub-atomic units –
The outward looking with the inward looking?
Adopting positions in a life
Where all is relative, illusory and limited
Is to have your nose rubbed into the philosophy of others.
But memories creep back
Like patriot spies through enemy lines
To alert you to the dangers all around.
At some point along the road of your new life
You will see the possibility of a second chance,
And if you look closely enough
You will see that it was always there,
Though the old life sought to deny this
By distracting you with worldly matters.
Whenever this chance appears to you
Along the road, seize it –
Even though it promises nothing,
And escaping from the falseness
Of your position will bring upon your head
Calumny and reviling scorn
From your fellow travellers;
Seize it, seize it, my friend
Because it is the journey back
To the source of your being,
The way to understanding and release.
The World could not have been forsworn
At the tender age when you were beckoned in,
And all the senseless stupidities you underwent
The pain you have suffered and inflicted
Through a disjointed awareness
That you are using wasted time;
And how the pain sprang back
To torment you – this is the arid, futile
Game of life played out
As you ally yourself with people power
To protect you in the pointless struggle,
All the time harbouring deep within you
The awareness that things do not really
Have to be like this.
You can free yourself of your burden
becoming light and joyful,
No longer diminished by the indifference of Man,
Returning to an age of innocence
That was lost and now is found
Where, to the pure all is pure
And savour to the full the lovliness of life.
5 April 1994