Letting Go Poem by Chris Ernest Nelson

I have played the great feast
with music and laughter–
a circle of friends and
in full measure of joy
dancing in the light of candles,
delicate stars and
the ample moon.

The earth spins in harmony
where the birds are flutes and violins
and the hunter and the antelope
are pounding drums.
I have won to me such treasures
as friendship, the satisfaction of togetherness
in comfortable days and enduring sleep.

I gathered my memories as delicate glass
in a translucent menagerie,
Objects that give me myself and
a place in the world.
I have walked out in the day to pronounce
my thriving name and I have arrived
home again in the night with shame and regret.

I know how to hold on to the things I love
and the pain that follows the snatching away.
I plan how to grasp the tomorrows
that wait for me and how to make
my past into a temple of mirrors.
But to be free is as simple as letting go…
letting go of everything.