Tuesday, May 05, 2015
When (poem by Dorothy)
When
When you were younger
there were certain things
you could take
more seriously:
the mystical temple, with its outer courtyard,
its inner courtyard,
the sanctum sanctorum
where only the priests might enter.
Invocations wearing
special garb.
Implements,
blessed
and sacred.
Waves of bliss
which rose
unexpectedly
out of the ground.
Ouijas
with their
strange answers,
their cabalistic messages.
The arrangement
of the stars,
your fate written
in the heavens.
Now you are occupied
with more familiar tasks,
assignments so very
mundane but necessary,
as if you had joined those who
call this way of life reality,
a realm where routine replaces
exaltation.
Except for those special moments,
like a star shower,
a sweep of rain
across the budding trees,
a sudden wave of joy
from a special phrase
of music,
a movement of the hands
that awakens ecstasy everywhere,
a memory recaptured.
Dorothy Walters
May 5, 2015
When you were younger
there were certain things
you could take
more seriously:
the mystical temple, with its outer courtyard,
its inner courtyard,
the sanctum sanctorum
where only the priests might enter.
Invocations wearing
special garb.
Implements,
blessed
and sacred.
Waves of bliss
which rose
unexpectedly
out of the ground.
Ouijas
with their
strange answers,
their cabalistic messages.
The arrangement
of the stars,
your fate written
in the heavens.
Now you are occupied
with more familiar tasks,
assignments so very
mundane but necessary,
as if you had joined those who
call this way of life reality,
a realm where routine replaces
exaltation.
Except for those special moments,
like a star shower,
a sweep of rain
across the budding trees,
a sudden wave of joy
from a special phrase
of music,
a movement of the hands
that awakens ecstasy everywhere,
a memory recaptured.
Dorothy Walters
May 5, 2015
