12:30

“...and with all your strength...”


My heart is heavy: if heaviness were
  a bundle I would set it down and leave
it on the roadside bloody there to throb
    and die alone.  Then newly spirited I
by the substitute beat of wings would learn to fly
      and rise to heaven all heaviness defied,
  by invisible will of winds sustained
    and carried, no more burdens to abide.
But let my heart beat on inseparable, strong
  against the grievous push of reality,
     steady as the ground on which I stand,
  constantly attending, the sergeant’s song
at the center of my march to victory
  and the core of my pain.
   
My soul is sad: and if it were a rope
  around my neck I would struggle to untie
the knots of my existence, to escape
  the tangles of my personhood, to be
unfettered from my sorrows, free at last:
  viva la dolce vita joie de vivre
     translated to the gates of God
  and welcomed in, all weariness relieved.
But let my soul run certainty within
  the intricate schematic of my veins,
     cause of all effect, the unseen force
  of every muscle’s movement, every wind
and spark and charge, the rattle in my chains
  and the source of my sadness.

My mind is numb: if heaven is a dream
  unproven, laughable, a fool’s goal I
     must dream it and believe it anyway:
  upon these wings imagined life becomes
more bearable, the suffering recedes;
  but prove there is no heaven, clip my dreams
     and pain abounds and weighs me down;
  my heart becomes a heavy ticking bomb;
my soul starts strangling me.
                         But let it be:
  let my heart beat on, my soul remain within
     to stubbornly endure; let time instruct
  the vital weave of heaviness and heaven
and let me learn how pain is not a parcel
  to reject or a cord to be cut.