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680 Queen's Quay West
Suite 724
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5V 2Y9
416-586-9669
michele@michelegeorge.com
- I Only Need to Show Up by Michele George
- Simone Weil
- Watch a One Year Old by Rumi
I ONLY NEED TO SHOW UP
Michele George
The sun goes down in the wide screen frame
Of my generous living room window.
These days! Oh, life!
With a joyful play of gratitude for a day
Of luminosity
A gleeful symphonic eruption
Only once in all of time to be played
In this gathering of movements.
A coming attraction of tomorrow's
New Day.
The composer hunched,gathering notes
In urgent racing heartbeat panic,
Even as the conductor waves a magic wand,
And a roar, ragged, smooth, jagged edges
Whisper
Beckoning.
A ululation,
A belly laugh
A chord of more nods and echoes
Than even God
Was ready for.
I watch as I dissolve
Into the
Hues
And cry.
I have no wish to hold on.
I marvel at this
Recognition.
I feel grown up
As a child dressed in secret
Having raided the beautiful mother's closet,
Dared to stand tall
In high heels of some
Creature who donated its
Breath
So its skin can cover mine
And raise me above the others.
Here comes the final moment,
The climax
The saffron, scarlet, fuschia
Whirled arpeggios
Outside my window
Rise ever higher to the finality
Of evensong.
And I stroke the several minks,
Each one
Holding the tail of its next of kin
In a mouth
That once ate other foods.
I stroke the forbidden fur.
The music trembles
Ever without my window,
With a force,
Death itself.
And I am
Unafraid,
Although wrapped in ecstatic dread.
The swirls are now no longer shocked and stunning bursts
On the wide screen,
But striations
Stretched
Wide, wider
And how can all this possibly
Reach so far?
The end is in sight.
My eyes a camera
Full of the sonority
Of a life well lived.
A chorale that was
Which holds my secrets
All my sins
My goodness
And my aching need.
My holiness,
Yes,
My profanity produced
Through years,
Eons of the sun going down.
But, oh, I thank thee, Lord,
For this mirror I've been granted
Cracks and all.
Oh, one more lie.
There is a tinge of sorrow.
I know I'd keep these sunsets if I could,
Locked in a box
Pandora style.
Knowing the day would come
When they'd be
Unleashed
On an unsuspecting world.
A beloved being who disappoints me.
People owe us what we imagine they will give us.
We must forgive them this debt.
To accept the fact that they are other than the creatures of our imagination
Is to imitate the renunciation of God.
I also am other than I imagine myself to be.
To know this is forgiveness.
Watch A One Year Old
by Rumi
Anger rises when you're proud of yourself.
Humble that. Use
the contempt of others, and your
own self-regarding, to change, like
the dog-barking lion rather, enjoy
the hurt longer. Watch a one-year-
old, how it walks, the slow wisdom
there. Sometimes a sweet taste
makes you sour and mean. Listen
to the voice that says, "It was for
you I created the universe". Then
kill and be killed in love. You've
been two dogs dozing long enough!