"To"


To pine for something that is no longer,
     that is gone,
     or never will be
To cry for something in the heart that
     no one else can know
     or fully feel
To focus energy, time, talent
     in the things of sorrow,
     the things creating yearning
     and desire to yearn all the more
To force these things into the trammeled
     dirt of the soul, 
     the groove of well-worn patterns
     of thought and emotion
Is to court dessication of life's juices
     and to promise spiritual poverty
     for the self-afflictor.

To feel that no one else can understand,
     or will understand,
To hate with a passionate hate that they 
     will not understand, that they will
     not do or be for us what we 
     refuse to be
      for ourselves
To sit in loneliness nursing a grudge or 
     a beer or
     two or
     three
Never once believing that others can be
     the kinds of friends we need, when
     we can't be the kinds of friends
     they need or even we ourselves need:

To draw morose and bleak conclusions from
     these things
Is to limit the Creative Potential of our
     Maker and of ourselves, being half our
     own makers
Is to desecrate the ground made Holy by our
     very presence,
Is to sit in lack of acknowledgement of the
     Holy and good that lies within.

To do these things is a self-indulgence worthy
     of being called "sin", as it withdraws
     from self,
     from God,
     from others,
     from all creation
      in a catatonic myopia of lack-of-love,
      in fear, apathy, and finally,
      in Hell.


To realize the wondrous choices we have in
     every moment,
     with every breath,
     in every heartbeat and brainwave,
To choose love and care going out
     instead of pity going in,
To choose warmth and understanding flowing out
     instead of woe stagnating,
To choose care for others
     instead of neglect for self
Is to choose Living Free
     instead of Dying Enchanted yet manacled.

To be Free ....


		   9pm, Sun., May 16th, 1998
		   (c) David Eisenstein