Behind a Looking Glass – The Fall, and Hope to Rise

The fall… Down

A deep hole…
Plummeting like Alice
But there are no wonders there
The paint is shit smeared on the wall.

Your fingers curled up in arthritic agony
A crippled grip on the heart
Squeezing out the beautiful riotous red of love and life
Leaving only a grey dirge where there once was cheerful song.

A scythe as wide as the horizon, wider than the world,
Wider than the UNIVERSE cuts a path of pain
You try to shut your lidless eyes against the needling sight,
Because the grain that falls is the hope that feeds your world.

There is no sun there, no light to lead the way home
What is “home”?
How long since you’ve had somewhere soft to land
Somewhere safe to rest your head
Somewhere to be a child again (if you ever were one).

At rest? There, at the bottom of the paradoxical abyss
When you’ve hit and been swallowed and there’s nothing more to miss
When you’re mired and you’re strangled by your blankets and your breath
How do you begin to untangle this deep and mournful mess?

Up?
Up is a distant memory
A treasure you forgot you buried
Like it never existed at all.

Oh yes, maybe, yes
The world shifts on its axis
And once again, as if for the first time
UP is a possibility.

The hope to rise… Up

The darkness is spangled with starlight
The echo in the emptiness is love calling your name
The warm rain promises spring after an endless winter
Everest fades, and the rocky road widens.

Icicles begin to break from your bones and your being.
The chain that bound your lungs, unlocked, now falls away
A heart beats, like a little bird, in your chest once again
Yes, Up, you remember now? Remember who you ARE.

New breath, dawn illumined
New day, the path is yours
By love or God or friends or
By your own hard-won and granted grace.

You are here NOW.
Breathe.
Ask.
Say YES.