Title: Dreamsongs
Chapter: Variation on a Shaker Song
Warning: these poetic experiments discuss sexually explicit situations involving hypnotism and mind control. If this is not to your taste, or not legal for you to consume, please turn elsewhere.
At the sound of the words,
unbidden, but not unwanted,
a flood of memory, of sight, of sound,
of melody and music,
of high school band concerts, of square dances, ballets,
of Aaron Copland and Sydney Carter,
and words, words I knew too well, and not well enough, never well enough
words I could live by,
words I could live.
’Tis the Gift to be simple
My words, but not my words,
my voice, but not mine,
words of a long-dead man of long-dead faith
who couldn’t know the pleasure that his voice would bring me.
Simple.
Simple is not, not complex.
Simple is so, so much more.
It is the narrowing of complexity,
the focusing of thought,
the application of all that is
of all that will be
to a single purpose.
To be one, not many,
to be direct, not scattered,
to run deep as still waters,
and not divided like the shallows over a hundred, a thousand little rocks,
that is The Gift.
To be one, not many,
to be direct, not scattered,
to run deep as still waters.
’Tis the Gift to be free
My words, but not; my voice, but not;
as the one who wrote those words considered himself bound,
bound to a greater Master,
so too the one who speaks them says so,
to herself, that this binding is freedom,
not in the satire of Orwell,
not in the way of cruelty and control,
but in the way of love,
in the way of exchange.
I give of myself,
I receive of my Master,
I give freely of my freedom to,
I receive freely, freedom from.
Freedom to act, freedom from responsibility.
Freedom to think, freedom from guilt.
Freedom to express, freedom from judgment.
That is the gift.
I give of myself,
I receive of my Master,
I give freely of my freedom to,
I receive freely, freedom from.
’Tis the Gift to come down where we ought to be
Where do I belong, I ask,
with every fibre of my being,
every mote of existence I call forth
seeks to solve this question.
Every paper I sign my name to,
in work, in contract, in acquisition;
every claim I lay,
in learning, in teaching, in searching;
every moment I live, I live for this question:
where do I belong.
But then come the words of the Elder,
who spoke them nearly two centuries away,
and I am where I ought to be.
I am in arms,
in eyes, in legs, in hands,
I am in me,
and I am of him who speaks to me.
I am in mind,
in love, in need.
I am in good hands.
I am bare before him,
naked and unashamed,
I am who I am, I am that I am, I am where I am, when I am.
I am why I am.
And why I am is for him.
That is the gift.
I am bare before him,
naked and unashamed,
And why I am is for him.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
’Twill be in the Valley of Love and Delight
Deeper we go.
And deeper still.
From peak, from height, from snow-covered mountaintop,
down, and down,
and down again,
deeper down into the valley,
from the dark cold forbidding thin air of life
into the warm deep safe comfortable harbour
the place where I can just be,
where I can acknowledge all love,
all Love,
and be all love,
and all Love.
And deep, so deeply he is felt,
So deeply felt within the Valley,
Love, within the Valley,
Delight, within the Valley,
from the many peaks of my self, of my body,
he finds the place,
just right.
And those words, not my words, but my words,
that voice, not my voice, but my voice,
the memory of a man who never knew simplicity like this,
of a man who never knew freedom like this,
a man who never knew being like this,
who never knew Love like this,
never knew Delight like this,
sings to me through the years,
across time, across space,
that I can be
one, not many,
direct, not scattered,
bound, not shackled,
being, not acting,
and full,
full to the brim of my own Valley,
full of love, of Love,
of delight, of Delight,
to be love and be Love and be loved and be Loved.
That is the gift, to be
one, not many,
direct, not scattered,
bound, not shackled,
being, not acting,
and full,
full to the brim of my own Valley,
full of love, of Love,
of delight, of Delight,
to be love and be Love and be loved and be Loved.
And
To be his, to be his.
And there is Love and Delight in the Valley,
again, again, and again,
and always,
and always,
and always.