I slept against the fence

and awoke to a quiet song

On the other side

in the garden

I saw you

 

You reaped what we had sown together

and carried the harvest to your mansion

and I followed you by the railings

You whispered a name

and offered a handful

in the distance

 

I sought towards the gate

and left a trail of seeds which the seasons grew into a yielding forest

Through these leaves we would wade again

and you would laugh and fall in my arms, again

And you would raise your hand

to unveil appeasing signs of our fate, again

 

The root you would unveil as our steadfast trust

The stem, as our astounding strength

The branch, unveiled as our generosity of spirit

The leaves, as our balmy gentleness

The fruit, our windfall beauty

 

Should the wind blow through the yielding forest

You would take it a keepsake song of laying down in the garden

And should you drink of its blossom

You would know where to go when the river forks

 

And I sought with a hollow heart

and awaited you to fulfill me

As the mountain awaits to grind to sand

As the sand awaits to melt into a carafe

As the carafe awaits to pool rain

As the rain awaits to bathe flowers

As the flowers await to blossom

As the blossom awaits to show way

 

But your quiet song you sang not for me

The name you whispered was not my name

And my hollow heart remained hollow

And inside of me there was a void

and outside an expansive plain

 

In denial I shook the rusty railings

And lamented “Shed your fear and open the gate

and in the gust my ash will settle in your garden

and new love will grow”

and the rust cut my palms

 

But I sought further

and in seeking I ran

none bore witness as I ran

through the dew and rain

And without knowing I lost way

in the here and now

and confused past with future

 

Yes, I ran

To escape from myself

Endlessly I ran

In the memory of wading through leaves in fall

Towards an idea I once held as truth

Until the abyss in me would cede

And I sought no more but I ran

 

And a rose bush overgrew the fence

And a thorn trenched my eye

I could not see, I could not see

and crimson tears glided down

and crimson palms beat across my chest

I could not breathe, I could not breathe

and I ran

 

But when my gaze withered stale

and exhaustion consumed me

Direction lacked purpose

And my body, before a refuge for you

now gave in to the dirt

to flee from itself

 

I sought no more

I ran no more

I laid here and the wind blew

And I thought of nothing

And it was still

Your song had muted

Again, a void in me, me on a plain

But this quiet was twice as loud

For I was separate from you

and now separate from myself

 

And then, from out of the silence

the thick iron spoke to me:

 

“Collapse into your own ruins

Crash into your own crater

Crumble to your own ashes

For does this not heave the mountain from the plain?

Have you not known destruction precedes creation?

 

Love veneers pain

This is its blessing and its curse

Have you not known of this?

In loving, does the sun not stifle and give passage?

Is the dying bed not the cradle?

 

Flee not from your abyss

Do not shun your hollow heart

Pain is your teacher

Suffer and you will see truth more real

And your fairness will be the sharp needle of your compass

and guide you towards yourself

This is how to find the gate to the garden you really seek”

 

And I asked: “Then, are you not the gate to the garden of my beloved?”

“Was that gate ever real?” was the answer

“But the fence I slept against is real,

the cuts in my palms are real and the trench in my eye is real” I pursued

 

“You needed the fence to rest against whilst adoring

But it was only a child of sleep from which you awoke

And in awareness you suffered for you sought love

 

If love is given, it is given in pain

See the hind deliver the fawn

 

If love is found, it will be found in the dust

of the all-obliterating war between you and yourself

 

And if love is seized, it is what remains in the shatters

when your beloved has fallen from the pedestal you built,

when the fence you rest against whilst adoring

is pulled away whilst awakening

 

Your seeking would not have led to love being given, nor to love being found

but only to you seizing love

 

I am not the gate to the garden of your beloved

That gate was never real

I am the gate to the garden you really seek

The gate that keeps you from war with yourself”

 

“Listen to the cadence of your beating heart

Do you hear yourself knock and the knock resonate?

Weaken your doubt, strengthen your belief

Take the carafe and pour the self-pain

in the cup of your hand

And drink from it

And shed pain from self with tears

to fulfill with self-love

 

And your tears, even as your seeds, will find the soil and form a trail

and you will be led to the gate

You will see it and walk upon it

 

Love will be given in pain

Yes, the gate will open

an opening to you

 

Love will be found in pain

Yes, love will grow anew out of your own ash

a love of you

 

Release yourself to find yourself

in your own garden”