The Other Side of The Veil

It only makes Sense
that there has Always been
Two Sides
To That Veil
that has Always kept me Back.

I spoke of it as The Veil of Truth;
Tried to peer through its hazy
Transparency.
I felt so grandiose
simply because I could see,
That there was one.

The Knowledge of this
isolating bondage;
a bondage made from
the suffocating weight
of cheese cloth--
Allowed me to be Held in Place
Complacent,
Stuck,
Deceptive --
To myself and the others
Gracing me with their Love and Patience.

I wish I could say
"Suddenly, It was lifted"
But it has been a Long Hard Look
and a Work for a Determined,
Dark Soul.
But in the Light of the Morning's Dawn
I see....

I see that One side is Truth
The Other, Deception.
Deception of Self,
Lies to My self.

The Veil of Truth
is
The Veil of Deception.

They are One...

Cheese Cloth...
Transparent...
So Light,
So Precarious,
Yet so Strong
So Resistant
to Movement, Growth, Living...

Desire
Sweat
Sleeplessness
Admitting
Honesty
Tears
Trust
Despair
Hopelessness
Determination


All these, Cycling
Time and time, again.
And Strength...
To Pull the Cords
Such Heavy, Burdensome Cords
To Lift this Veil
That, in weight, is light enough
To be Blown away
with Just a Puff of Breath....
or a Seed of Faith.

If only it were that easy....
Alas, only worth the work you expend???
Exhausting but True...

I Spoke of This veil
As hiding from Me
'...That which is Essential...'
As it turns out;
It was Simply the Truth,
About Myself.
And that is The Most Essential
thing that We can Know.

And at this spot of Beauty
in my Journey,
I Can see So Clearly now
That I constantly
Fanned those Fireflies Away;
Away from the Delicacy of their Work
of Lifting That Veil.
But Back then,
I wasn't ready for anything more
Than the Protection it provided.
At certain points along the Journey,
We can only See so much.

We must keep Walking.
Keep Searching,
Listening
and Loving;
Loving Ourselves and those we are
Blessed with along the Road,
To gain the Strength --
To See with True Sight,
Our True Self.

(c)2008jsblankenship

The Going

"Hardy is better known for his novels, but some of his poetry is very good indeed, and he has the nineteenth century feel for things passing that culminated in the First World War. I found this poem in a anthology, and it was right for how I felt, right for the moment. So I have learned it. It makes me sad, it makes me cry, but it is a very good poem for the ripped heart." ~JW

by Thomas Hardy

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow’s dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
Where I could not follow
With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon.

Never to bid goodbye,
Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
Unmoved, unknowing
That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me.

You were she who abode
By those red-veined rocks far West,
You were the swan-necked one who rode
Along the beetling Beeny Crest,
And, reining nigh me,
Would muse and eye me,While Life unrolled us its very best.

Why, then, latterly did we not speak,
Did we not think of those days long dead,
And ere your vanishing strive to seek
That time’s renewal? We might have said,
‘In this bright spring weather
We’ll visit together
Those places that once we visited.’

Well, well! All’s past amend,
Unchangeable. It must go.
I seem but a dead man held on end
To sink down soon… O you could not know
That such swift fleeing
No soul foreseeing –
Not even I – would undo me so.