Friday, March 30, 2007

A Lenten Question

Encountering Dangerous Beauty

Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands,
parched places of apathy, or are you
agitated in desert wastelands ~

awake in the dark light where mystics stand,
or do you slump in your usual Sunday pew?
Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands?

Do you fill your life with privileges of every brand
or do you empty your cup of all you once knew ~
agitated in desert wastelands.

What do you require to acquire? How do you fill your hands?
Can you reduce possessions to just a few
or are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands?

Commercialize, privatize, merchandise: your life in a can.
What do you get from all this? What do you construe ~
agitated in desert wastelands?

To bloom in the desert, don’t you understand,
you must let go of the last hope of morning dew.
Are you asleep in uninhabited salt sands
or vitally agitated in desert wastelands?