The ash from which new love will grow

You cast life into me

as the sun casts life into the germ

If too far there will be no blossom

if too close there will be fire

And I will always grow towards you

and in so doing I will always burn

But must I be chided even in spite of knowing this?

 

The first ripe apple in the apple tree

in the brightest red of screaming pride and the first to fall

threatens the sleeping caterpillar below

But when it emerges a butterfly

and beats its wings in first flight

it will blow the apple of its branch

And in its shadowy fall

colour crimson of a bleeding wound:

The apple, verily, is at the mercy of the butterfly!

 

And when the butterfly, too, eventually falls out of the sky

and the apple seed will have grown into a tree

They will have given way for love

For it tastes much sweeter than strife

 

See the butterfly now drink of the apple blossom

See in return the conception of its fruit:

 

Yes, to surrender to love is to arrive

to surrender to strife is to leave

 

Then if the apple fell and through its seed rose again

when I burned reaching for you

I will have burned into fertile ash

from which new love will grow

 

At the mercy of the sun there is burning and growing

It stifles and gives passage

It equals the end to the beginning

 

Or is the end just that?

Because although sleeping in this world opens the gate to another, however real,

is the dream not only a child of sleep and from this does one not wake up?

 

This matters not

for all doubt is weak in the face of belief

I know because I choose to know

I choose to know because I believe:

the apple falling, and me burning from reaching for you

they are the apple seed rising, and the fertile ash from which new love will grow

 

But it will be in vain if from the past there is no learning

 

Does sprouting up not imply root taking down?

For peace to last, must victims of war not be mourned?

 

Therefore look into the eyes of the past

as though they are the eyes of your father and mother that set you forth, entirely

 

Look into those eyes before they close

and you will build a secure road

and confidently you will choose way when the river forks

Ignore them and you will wander

wander along a path that leads nowhere

For it is only paved with the muddy stubbornness

of current joy

of satisfying flesh

of here and now

 

This path will wash away

even before the turn and without you knowing

And you will not discern

the direction paved and in need of paving

and in this way estrange from the past

and confuse it with the future

 

If severed from the past

one loses way in paving, in endless wandering and paving in the here and now

 

So find the purple-black bilberry and consume

the years and seasons it survived before it gave fruit

which from now on it will always bear

 

In its root, in its stem, in its leaf, in its fruit

it has understood the lessons of the years and seasons past

and has sometimes shed a leaf

in silence

 

The bilberry is enduring as lovers are hurting

And all lovers have shed tears

in silence

 

But this, too, is only in preparation of bearing fruit

For is the iron sword not hardened after having been quenched in water?

Does the sun not reach deeper into the forest after the thunderstruck tree has fallen?

 

As sunset implicates sunrise

Lovers’ tears implicate hearts fusing

 

Choose to know this,

Weaken doubt, strengthen belief

 

 

Now, go, love

Go

 

Arise anew out of the ash of my burning

And distinguish past from future and bloom

Unconditionally and always, bloom

Believe and it becomes real

 

The end a beginning

Shed your fear and open the gate for me

and in the gust my ash and the apple seed will settle in your garden

and new love will grow

 

If in your heart there is half a beat that beats for me

go stir the ash and in silence shed a tear

and look in my eyes and see in them the past and future

 

It may be the only thing needed

For our hearts to fuse

Find the blossom and drink therefrom

And see the conception of fruit

Trust that I know where to go when the river forks

 

Go

Go, love

Go

 

Go see your heart beats for me

 

Go

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