Saturday, July 05, 2008
Let Go (poem)
Let Go
Let go of everything.
Forget who you are.
Your neighbor loading and unloading
from the evening meal
in the apartment above
does not listen
to the same music as you.
The officer
directing vehicles
around the latest crash
in the street below--
he cannot now or ever, cut off from
the world around.
If you tried to tell them how it is,
they would not understand.
They have other possibilities in mind
for people much like you.
Even infirmaries and cells,
places apart from
the rest of their world,
the drowsing “normal”
where safety
is a guarantee.
They know nothing of angel
song reverberating
in your ears
at morning,
the music of the stars turning
at night.
Of light flowing into
your hands,
your wrists,
flooding your
chest even now.
Let go of everything.
Forget who you are.
Your neighbor loading and unloading
from the evening meal
in the apartment above
does not listen
to the same music as you.
The officer
directing vehicles
around the latest crash
in the street below--
he cannot now or ever, cut off from
the world around.
If you tried to tell them how it is,
they would not understand.
They have other possibilities in mind
for people much like you.
Even infirmaries and cells,
places apart from
the rest of their world,
the drowsing “normal”
where safety
is a guarantee.
They know nothing of angel
song reverberating
in your ears
at morning,
the music of the stars turning
at night.
Of light flowing into
your hands,
your wrists,
flooding your
chest even now.
Dorothy Walters
July 5, 2008
(Image of Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" is from Wikipedia. It was painted while he was in an asylum at St. Remy.)
