Poem for a Sunday

So Sundays often feel contemplative to me. Maybe it's something particularly on my mind today, as the skies are broody, weeping with copious amounts of rain, and I am contemplating a great many more things than just my navel. Poetry definitely falls into the category of contemplation. I'm playing with the idea of posting a different one here each Sunday. Not, let it be known, my own poetry. I don't really write that. But the words of others that have moved me...now, that's a different story. Or poem.

My friend Rachel Snyder is a writer extraordinaire, currently based in Colorado, although not exactly in the southwestern area...but very worthy of reading, in my as-always humble opinion. Don't believe me? Check her out yourself. Here's a poem from her that she posted today, added here for your enjoyment wherever you may be.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know!

You approach the altar time and again

Only to retreat under the weight of your own misgivings,

Your feet falter, caught in the glue of ego and indecision

And you retreat once more into your lone and empty cell.

You know I’m not making this up!

You muster a weak smile for the woman on the sidewalk,

While those pesky concrete walls encircling your heart

Rise up repeatedly in triumphant separation,

Signs on every floor flash by in hypnotic contempt

Me, Them. Self, Other. Yes, No.

How often do you ache and preen in the name of Love

Yet push back the gentle beckonings even as Love calls your name?

Entangled in the thorns, you miss the scent of roses,

Steeped in old words and painful recollection,

Creation’s most rapturous melodies pass by unheard.

I am merely mentioning what you may have forgotten:

It is time again to listen.

To unloose your grasp on all that is dying

Sweep out the dust of disappointment and regret,

Wipe clean your soulwindows of no-longer-useful residue

And surrender to the insistent Call that bears your name.

Have faith that all is safe now,

That you may take up the linoleum covering your spiritfloor

And liberate the tender interior surfaces yearning to breathe deeply

once more!

The light of your brilliance has reduced bushels to ashes;

What you have protected for so long is now ready to provide.

Take a moment to remember what may have slipped your mind:

In you rests a wondrous seed that can never be duplicated

A boundless capacity for passionate living

And a never-ending supply of unrestrained Love

It’s yours if you want it,You are worthy, deserving…
…but surely, you already know that.

-Rachel Snyder