Thursday, October 13, 2011
Poem by Joyce Sutphen
Bookmobile
by Joyce Sutphen
I spend part of my childhood waiting
for the Sterns County Bookmobile.
When it comes to town, it makes a
U-turn in front of the grade school and
glides into its place under the elms.
It is a natural wonder of late
afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,
William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson
traveling down a double lane highway
together, country-western on the radio.
Even when it arrives, I have to wait.
The librarian is busy, getting out
the inky pad and the lined cards.
I pace back and forth in the line,
hungry for the fresh bread of the page,
because I need something that will tell me
what I am; I want to catch a book,
clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,
to London, to anywhere.
The first stage of the path to God in the Sufi tradition is the stage of longing. Even when we are children, we often yearn for "something more," something larger, more stimulating, some kind of escape from the tedium of the everyday life. Many of us, like the author of this poem, sought such expansion of soul and insight as children through reading. Books opened a door into another world, perhaps magical realms where miracles occurred.
I think that that such longing in childhood can lead us into the "longing for the divine" that drives many into the arms of God as adults. We are seeking a different world, a "higher" version of reality than that found in the shrunken landscape about us. We are not willing to settle for "it is what it is," but seek ceaselessly for the truth beneath the surface, the hidden connection that points us toward the treasure within.
And for many, Kundalini is the key, the secret implement that unlocks the door, reveals the enchanted landscape we have unknowingly prepared for all of our lives.
