duhpursuit

They are idiots, fumbling and dim-witted,
ignorant of the carefully timed opening
closed, inopportune, and dumb–all their senses
numb to the obvious unfolding
despite all the evidence that nature affords
to those with enough good fortune
to penetrate the meticulous overlapping
of flesh and mind and spirit.

They are desperate and stumbling
stammering, incoherent, mumbling,
always somewhere in the dark and bound
by circumstance or obligation
for a sharp and unexpected corner,
the tender separations
only we can see, their mangled frames
muscling their way into the narrow aisle
of our hearts, as if they have nowhere else
to rest their weary, calloused minds,
searching always for a soft and gentle space
that will let them be seven again,
whole and unfractured, nestling
their heads into the doughy rescue
of a fictional mother.

When they find us at last
it’s as though their spirits
are worn already, waiting for us
to smooth the ragged and torn,
the wrinkled corners, placing the untidy
childhood they have
brought to bed.

“You only lose what you cling to.”–Buddhist saying

Love is a clinging thing. We hold that which we love close in order to cherish it, an attempt to resist what we know cannot endure. This is good for us. It gives of some sense of purpose, of belonging, of living a life of value. Also, clinging is good for other things, like wrapping left over food and taking spillables on a picnic. Also good for keeping pies tidy and removing pet hair from furniture.

It is not the clinging itself that causes us to suffer, but desire. We suffer because we do not know how to unhinge our desperate grasp on love, and in doing so, suffer for as long as it takes for us to release.

There’s a Buddhist saying that has made sense to me recently as I deal with allowing a certain kind of death to happen with my relationship to my mother: “You only lose what you cling to.”

This has helped me to realize that the intense feeling of loss I feel and am dealing with has to do with a clinging to an idea, a grasping for what I imagine as a “good” relationship with my mother, something that is nearly an unreality at this point. It is my clinging to this idea, a clinging to the unchanging idea of what I want our mother-daughter relationship to be, the causes me to suffer. Read the rest of this entry »