The Fifth Step
(#5, from "The Twelve Poem Book" )
When you come to me, that we may
measure your pain, it is my remittance,
to give myself away for heaven’s sake,
to fly above this centerpiece that
causes me such confusion.
Your crimes, your absolution in my
ear, frees my soul by painting me
a picture.
How despicable, am I. How contrite and
unaware of my pitiful harness to myself.
With a mind deeper than the ocean, more dense
than the final stage of coal, clear as a crystal
hemisphere, the orchard bearing fruit, I misconstrue
with exquisite talent, create a multitude of knots only
to meet death behind my back.
Nothing is about me. Your confession unravels you
from center and I am released, empty to
orbit the stratosphere.
From outside, the universe is obvious.
All that is, is.
When I am empty, what is, passes
through, and I am filled.
The portrait is a woman with hands
open, palms one hundred galaxies unmeasured,
eyes that light eternity, body naked to the world.
If I hold nothing, I am free.
When you release your ropes of what isn’t and they
pass through me to what isn’t, we rise together, winged –
ready to open our kingdom’s gardens to heaven’s glory
dropped seed by seed.
~ Copyright © 2008 by Susan Durant. From The Twelve Poem Book. Used by permission of the author.