An Audience

Some are capable
of finding happiness
with a rational plan.
(I’ve been calling them
psychology’s children.)
And there are many who
no longer believe
a man should do something for a woman
just because he’s a man
and she is something different.

But some of us prefer
to throw our weight around,
our souls lean and supple
from strange postures
stretched out all day,
all day, not much good for anything
except living here in this world.

A psychologist writes to everyone;
no one in particular,
but my audience is specified.
Who you believe you are,
believe you could be.
As much as words can beckon,
this is what I am involving you with.

Maybe you’re twice divorced.
Maybe you loathe the career
you’re finishing at 65.
Perhaps your child is gone
without writing two, three, ten years,
and church is only the place
to be reminded
how much you have to live up to.

Well here is weight for you,
here is your alpine lake.
Here is moss growing on rock,
soft and strongly attached.

Did anyone promise you
anything in particular?
God promised you
the ability to live,
the same promise
within everything.

Did anyone promise
the ability to live
as two different people?
Loving one self
and working with the other?
Is ownership so necessary?

This life is given to you for a short while
to sip on.
Then thrown back, with help,
into torrential flow:
existence without the need for more existing.

There is no man outside,
no person so much bigger
than you are.
Simply, you must know
what it is your body
can do in the world.

Then to astound,
your soul needs only two instructions:

Listen,
and Glisten.