Follow Your Bliss

        
        The complacency of knowledge, mysteries explained
             as simple chemical reactions,
             part of the normal process...
        The mutation of nature to goddess 
             to god to lord and master...
        The distance through miles of marble,
             centuries of evolution, tons of concrete, 
             between ourselves and creation...
        The dissolution of the rainbow 
             into frequencies of refracted light...


                   I dreamt I looked at my hands --
                   my fingers were spread stiffly,
                    feathers came through my skin.
          I felt the ache of my bones hollowing themselves.
                   I spread my wings.  And danced.


        My eyes, my hair, my skin, my bones are bleached
             by the unwavering brilliant light of logic.
        My hands, my feet, my spine, my mind is defined
             within tomes of unquestionable wisdom.
        It is not knowledge that kills this soul,
             it is loss.  Loss of self.
        Loss of craft, loss of faith.               
        

                    The fire burned and I leapt up
                        to land on four paws.
                        I could smell the sky
                     and the night became clear.
                   I threw back my head.  And sang.

        
        To define a thing, a being, is to limit it within
             the confines of your explanation, your rationale.
        
        
        Secrets.  Enchanter, necromancer, conjurer, seer, 
        soothsayer, diviner, evocator, sorceror, wizard, 
        pishogue, warlock, medicine man, talismanic, pow-wow, 
        voodoo, magician, shaman, exorcist, prophet, witch.  
        And the monk did not know if he was a monk imagining 
        he had been Mahabrahma or Mahabrahma playing at being 
        a monk. 
        

           Suddenly I knew my name, the name of all things.
            And I knew that, when I awoke, I would forget,
         and live as others, sleepwalking through the world.
              So, for this moment, I will look about me 
             and remember, until the infinity has passed.
                                             
                                        Kelly J. Cooper
                                        5/4/92
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