ONE FOR THE POET’S SWEATSHOP

When people are connected,
They both look out again,
Eyes truly open wide,
Aghast,
Not into their dark,
And rediscover the living wonder, everywhere.
They see anew, the giant and minute.
They drink the world
And speak the truth.
They are the real Universe.
They look.

Then the energy of love flows back through everything,
With brilliant gaze,
Sometimes too much to bear.
An endless shock.
Like the blinding sun inside us all.
They raise a cry.
They shake the air.
But there are good tears and evil tears,
And I have seen you reflected in too much darkness.
Too much me. Alone.
The emptying of weeping.
A globe unpinned.
Spinning.
So I went blind.

I saw you once though, in one great moment,
A real place in time,
A flicker of an ancient world made new,
Through tears of joy and trust,
Flowing together,
And saw my best reflected in your eyes.
My good. You.
Your good. Me.
The same.

You made me drop my armour, take off fear,
In all that fragile quivering,
But in drinking in my strength
Forgetting your own re-arming,
The turning world,
Now shaded sun, undying,
You made the wound too great,
For any protection.
You plucked my core,
And scorched my earth.
You made me need the night.

Strip me naked then,
To burn,
In love or loss,
And suffer proudly for everything done wrong.
For every harm and misconnection.
Even in that withering.
For the blind closing of raked, weeping eyes,
That make an evil in the hollowed soul.
For anything that cannot grow.

But tell them in their own half looking,
They should not scorn my shame,
Too much. Too long.
But listen.
Love’s art is first to listen.
And then to see with all its blazing power.