This Feeling That Keeps On Coming... Poem by RIC BASTASA

the shrinking happens
you cut a story, you sharpen a bolo,
you say no to some friends,
refuse some invitations,
you prune a tree, you clip a note,
you turn off light,
you shorten a pole,
you put a dead-end to your alley,
you say, it is enough,
you tell them, there is something
wrong with the system,
and the world knows it literally,
the best is yet to come,
that sense of pride is evil to some,
who is there? ah, a mediocre,
a monkey eating its own tail,
why are they clapping? there is no
one there, it is only a show of
rain, it stops, and the forest is
at its silence again.

you tell a friend, ' do you like this? '
yet he does not see what you are actually holding.




it is like shedding leaves,
you feel like a tree wanting to set free
all that is attached to you, you let them do
the cutting of twigs, until what remains
in you is the root, nothing but roots
all these, the passers-by never see
to that dying tree...

what is this feeling all about?

it is like going back to the seed form
to find the essence
of yourself.

It is necessary.
One has to grow
from the basics again...

one shies away from the show of the clouds
from the blinking stars,
one goes inside, like an urchin
back to the sea,
down to its depth.