Purification

My conscience breathes like the wind through the cardboard houses of shame,
it vacuums the carpets of desire, it cleanses the toilet bowls,
it rinses the dishes, it washes the laundry, it penetrates to the roots of the tree of awareness,
I write on the paper of endurance, looking for beauty in the silence of loneliness,
I bathe like a penguin in the snow and open my heart to the kindness of sunlight,
My words are slow and soft like a delicate perfume on your neck,
I follow their movement effortlessly but patiently,
I see my fingers open and a bird flies out,
She is the feathered form of imagination,
She dances through the mind in the colors of the spectrum—
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet,
As I follow my journey, I have a glimpse of the splashing waves,
I see rocks and shells, I see coral and sand, I see the sunlight
break up into millions of dancing, shimmering pearls on the
water, I enter the ocean, I become transparent, I radiate
a bright white glow—I am that!


  August 16, 1989 
--Alexander Shaumyan