Let your wisdom swim through my skin like the breath in my lungs, like fish in the sea, like a school of dolphins taking turns at the lead. Lead me out of the shallows, into the deep. Play your hallowed verses through the wounds in my flesh, and let your music release the sobs in my chest. In the sealed room, in the healing darkness of morning, let me learn anew what it means to keep my heart center open.
It is the last morning of November. I wake at four to a cold house. Time to start the fire. The wood takes a long time to catch, and it takes me no time to grow impatient. Self-accusation begins at once, and the accused is guilty until proven innocent. How can you be so incapable? How, after hundreds of times starting fires, can you still struggle to accomplish the task this morning? The accused is in his own movie, the main and only defendant in a staged trial by fire, but try as he might he cannot get the wood hot enough to be tried. The case is neither well received nor poorly received by the jury. There is no jury, and there are no witnesses. No one else sits in this theatre of the absurd to watch this film on repeat reel. There is no reception; there was never a wedding; there will be no consummation.
Dark morning, do what you will do.
Grow light without resistance.
Spread your light to the resistant world.
But too much light too soon might blind me.
First, let my own resistance rest
in you dark hour I rest within.
No one murmurs except crickets,
no one moans for the pleasures of the past,
no one dreads the pain of the future,
for no one is here to moan or dread.
Nothing here but the dark hour.
Not a soul awake that knows my name.
Dark morning, you do what you do
not for me or anyone else,
not to be praised or celebrated.
We should all be so bold
to work in such obscurity,
to toil before the sun
and rest by light of day,
returning alone at dusk
to the desk we left at dawn
so the light within can grow
in the growing darkness without.
The day has ended, but the cars do not cease
I sit at this desk, wondrin’ if anyone is at peace
I feel so far away from the only one I ever knew
I sense tragedy ahead, but what else can I do?
I need to move on, I got nothin’ to say
To stay’s to wither, and let the soul decay
The heart’s a labyrinth, the mind’s a black hole
You can get trapped in either, lose sight of the whole
To capture the foal soon to grow into a magnificent steed
You’ve got to go after what you want, and know what you need
I need to move on, I got nothin’ to say
To stay’s to wither, and let the soul decay
There’s never enough time, and something is always lacking
You’re not hungry, you’re not cold, but loneliness is attacking
In the heat of the summer, everyone’s ravaged by lust
Like a self-propelled incinerator, about to combust
I’ve got to get outta here, I got nothin’ to say
To stay’s to wither, and let the soul decay
Must my skin be touched for my passion to manifest?
Can I not touch it within, where the heart finds its zest?
What can I do when this restlessness never leaves me?
What song can I sing when even singing grieves me?
All I can do is move on, I got nothin’ to say
To stay’s to wither, and let the soul decay
Let me find a quiet place where I can think and chop wood,
Where I can feel the peace of morning, and say that it is good,
Where the fires that now consume me, can lead me to the light,
Where the one thing I’ll never touch, calls to me through the night
I hear the call to move on, I know there’s nothin’ to say
To stay here’s to wither, and let the soul decay
I look at a plant for a class I take.
At first I see nothing but green.
All I see is green; yet I feel nothing
green growing within me.
There is only green on the outside,
shadow on the inside,
and space in between.
I look closer at the plant,
looking at it now not for a class I take,
looking out and looking in.
I look at nothing but I look within.
The sun is on its way down.
The plant as it faces me sits in shadow,
the opposite side sits lit up by the sun.
When the sun is on its way up,
the side facing me could be lit,
the side opposite me could be in shadow.
What is lit by morning may fade into shadow
by night.
What is obscured in shadow by night may be lit
by morning.
In the morning,
in those hours before the day begins
and before the people awake,
I am lit and obscured
by shadows in the twilight.
Perhaps wakefulness in the world works in this way:
The less people awake, the more wakefulness present,
the more wakeful those who do not sleep.
But this plant I look at
as I look in—
this plant is always wakeful,
though half of it is now in shadow,
though half of it is now in light.
Wakeful yet still,
this plant that does not blow in the wind
as much as its neighbors,
being wide and short in stature.
Wakeful yet still, and at rest,
but never dull, never colorless.
Brimming with color:
Now a soft and subtle brown at the base,
now a fierce and passionate red at the stem,
now an alive and sunlit green in the leaves.
To be brimming with color,
yet remain still;
To abound in light,
yet remain boundless in shadow;
To be unknown,
yet remain unique and one’s own:
That is to be
like this plant, the name of which
I do not know.
Brian Leibold 