Perhaps what
Was most inspiring
Was the feeling that a last
Door of imagining was opening;
A season when the most compelling
Messages would be proffered:
.
Visible through the opening
A vast desert loomed with
No comfort or streams,
Just thorny cactus
(Hordes of them)
Jealously hiving their moisture
.
Struggling to cast-off a
Burnt-cork façade, curiosity
Passed over a threshold
Into a barren
From a good position
Of mind and spirit to see
More of what it felt drawn to
.
But in this place
.
Water, he saw,
Was not enough
To survive
Where thick skin
And succulent flesh
Took always what it wanted
While keeping a difficult balance
.
Then it came to his sight,
A time-ravaged abode where
Nothing was plumb, level, or square,
A structure shaky from time, and where
No piece fit another without a gap…
And he saw there
That black and white
Became all gradation of grays,
A forest of giant stones,
Of fossilized stumps,
Where a weight of sameness
Never cheered together in unison
.
It [seemed] his age
Required the task of
Creating a different image,
A deeper sense of inwardness,
Of belonging, of being understood,
Where the spirit did not loathe
The unending struggle, or
The leaning
To stand apart,
(Despite sunlight’s burn
Or moonlights chill) as hope
Waited for blooms to burst open
And refresh weariness with redolence,
.
But in this place
.
Water, he saw,
Was not enough
To survive
Where thick skin
And succulent flesh
Took always what it wanted
While keeping a difficult balance
.
So he purposed
To go along,
To accept his becoming,
To stakeout no beginnings or ends,
To establish no fortifications,
From where no
Boundaries would be
Raised, shutting out or shifting
The Light, separating inside from outside,
With all possibilities open,
And no path closed
To the sacred
Freedoms of writing,
Where fearlessly sharing
(With no bruise or blunder)
Allowed every impulse of vision to
Explode from the core honestly, so when
The creative flow had finally ended
That what was left behind
(MORE) resembled a field of wildflowers
Than the savage desert(s) they were discovered in

richard lloyd cederberg
2/2016

                                  richardlloydcederberg.com