Another Kind of Clay

By John Herlihy

I was afraid I was going to die,

And then I was afraid that I wasn’t,

Afraid if my life means something,

And then I was afraid that it doesn’t.

I was thinking my life journey a free ride,

And then I was thinking life as sheer demand,

Always seeking out people taking my side,

And then seeking forces with power to command.

At first, I wanted to stay at home,

And then I wanted to take my home with me.

My home now lies deep within my heart,

Always there, a place of peace, there inside me.

I was always questioning the truth of things,

And then questioning the apparent lie,

Wondering if I would miss what life brings,

Then wondering if I would miss life when I die.

I was always trying to answer life’s mystery,

And then realized life’s mystery answered me.

The grand specter of the unknown followed,

Flashes of the unseen in my eyes glowed.

I was always at adds to know my own mind,

Then saw my mind hardly knew better than me.

My mind could never settle on what to find,

It could not always fathom what I want to see.

I never trusted the raw knowing of my heart,

And then I began feeling what the heart may offer.

The heart admittedly a soft, tender, fragile thing,

Ready to break and shatter at what life will bring.

People speak of the devil with a kind of contempt,

Saying that there isn’t any such silly thing.

But when I ended up doing wrong, I did lament,

Devil or not, my own wrong-doing I myself bring.

My origins now remote, lost in yearning;

My destiny a boat, tied to the earth’s turning.

We think our lives shaped in its own way;

But my heart is made of another kind of clay.