Routine life—
a balance beam
a tightrope
a well-worn path…
(for a better image
choose your own)
and not to be disparaged—
wild roads will ruin a carriage.
Perhaps at best
a glass bottom boat—
but note it is not the sea.
Love—
the water below—
its feeling, turmoil, floating—
the madness that is clarity.
And the ground
beneath the beam
the net beneath the rope
and all that can be found
beyond the path
then cherished in it.
One of your best writes Glen! I enjoyed its depth and the salient truths expounded on life and love. Top marks!
thank you, valsa! i've been realizing lately how what i read shows up in my poetry. in this case reflection on reading rumi on love. -glen
I like the last stanza - it is God. Wonderful poem.10.Happy New Year!
marieta, hi! nice to meet you here at ph. and thank you for reading my poem and commenting on it. a good new year to you as well. -glen
Love this! ! Absolutely enjoy the blend of humor, wit, and wisdom! ! Well, you know me, I was attracted of course to this line- -wild roads will ruin a carriage.. You picked the right images unerringly for this fantastic poem! ! 10+++++++++++++++++
thank you, susan—much—for your enthusiastic appreciation... (these parentheses represent me feeling humbled and wondering what to say next...) as i say in by or through so often it's not so much like me picking or choosing what to say as writing down what comes... wishing/praying all the best to you this year, glen
A great poem laden with so many imageries, each with a specific purpose, so well chosen. Felt like going through a meditation class presided by Milarepa, the great Tibetan Buddhist Monk. Thank you dear sir for such an enlightening poem. 10+++++ Subhas
you're welcome, subhas, and thank you for your enthusiastic comments. i hadn't thought of milarepa for a long time, so thank you for that. i have in the past enjoyed reading about him. -glen
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Everything coheres in this poem: there is a unity of experience because everything is linked into a larger whole and it is the whole that your poem grasps, which is really surprising although you make it quite convincing. I like this theme that we must leave the path and enter the beyond and THEN make that beyond part of the path, again and again, we go beyond and then return. This is a challenging view of life. It's an odyssean perspective.
Thank you for your comments, Daniel. It wasn’t in my mind when I wrote this, but I find fascinating and convincing the Cambellesque likening of our lives to the hero journey with its familiar characters and stages. Beyond the path, as I put it here, or at its edges, are the thresholds we cross into new discoveries. -Glen