Seven Columns Of Truth Poem by Sarita Brown

is there a way to find our way
and make a way in the darkness
is there a way to redefine the darkness
to know the dark-ness
is only a version of the light
of the way we are and the way we are
is unimagin-ably wonder-ous
the simple complexi-ty of humanity
is the one thing that keeps us all together
in one place at one time in one way or the other.

we do not have a book that tells us
we do not have a handle on our pain
we do not have the secret deep within us
and we do not have a way to talk
about it even when we most need to,
somehow the way home was become
the way we refuse and the way we refuse
must be the way our secret longings
and the longings are ingrained in us
and made to fit our souls.

if i tell you a secret it is not a secret any longer
and we do not know how to treasure our secrets
the ones we keep between ourselves and god alone.
He must feel so betrayed
to never have a single secret with one of us
that we do not have
published by that
Random house place to make profit…

i ask him sometimes when we are napping together
if i have hurt him somehow
‘oh darling, ‘ he murmurs,
‘you know that it can’t hurt any deeper than the way I’ve hurt you
myself.’

i accept that as an apology..in his way.
We go back so far that to hold it against him would be
inconsistent with the forgiveness i know is there.
now we don’t talk about it much,
but i think that he is a little disappointed in my lack of
commitment.


i think he has given up on the big plan we talked
about when i was younger. he knows I am tired
and knows that there is only one thing i really want these days.
no great purpose, message or meaning to life.
I just want a real person to fall into, LOVE,
just want to remember how to kiss in the elevator.
to make love until all our bones melt with the sheer
heat of this lovely physicality, this flesh
I wanted more once. but i’m tired.
And i’ve been alone so long
I almost forgot that other humans are real.

So he sends them sometimes, like you.
and here we are, not so simple after all the wanting.
But I’m learning to live with it, just for the exchange.

I take you as my one and true love she said onstage,
knowing that the chances are just as good
that you will leave me one day soon and
have that wedding you think you’ll hate
and the babies you claim
you don’t want to just to make me feel better.
It only matters that i love you.
just as god does love you and me
and waits for the real to come shining through on us both
on us all on the whole dam planet.
he knows we will be melded with, swallowed up in, Joy.
‘take that’ he’ll say laughing.
take now out of time what you refused to take IN Time.
take me, i am Love and i will Love and you will Love
when you remember that you are in me too.

this is the gospel according the Way
Of Love.
and it has many names and faces.

one of them is yours.