THE SKIN OF TIME

Releasing the ego

The thin skin of time is opaque
Most don’t see through it
Most of the time
Uncertainty’s dread – knowing not what we’ll be doing
Or becoming
We retreat into the frail Home of Hope
With its scratched, plastic windows
And dusty curtains of avoidance
We can avoid peering at the unseeable spectre of our lives
We need to see but can’t

In the sacred place of Blame on Others
Addicted to hocaine, the drug of victimhood
We scrunch that sacred skin up
As if to shorten it; avoid it altogether

Then there comes a moment of Truth
When we forget to fear
Forget to judge
And through the visionless dark
There’s a flash, a spark
The skin pulled tight then twangs back
But we’ve seen and can’t unsee
Can’t forget

This light might be a movie, book or saying
A friend, pet or comrade
However it comes, it soothes our soul
We know now there is a future
No longer is bleak and barren our course
But one of light, lucidity and … yes, smiles

Then we move to the stronger House of Trust
Trust in ourselves, trust in our ego
The curtains now gone and windows of glass
Plans are made – goals, targets and aspirations
The chimera of control arises
And we’re happy to stretch the Skin of Time
Pretend we see clearly through thinner flesh
And mark it with arrows, timelines and visions

We are awakened, enlivened and wish to tell the world
The world that’s ours to carve and command
There comes this moment then, that we all dread
Because, suddenly, nothing at all happens
These plans, you see, they fall to dust
No longer are we the master of our universe
The mourning may be a moan, a minute or a millennium
It lasts as long as we choose

And then the brighter light dawns
The one that doesn’t fade, isn’t afraid
One star, two star, three star, many
On this Day of Delight we step outside
Bounded by nothing that protects
Defencelessness is indeed our strength
Naked, frail and open
We drop those arduous plans, so painfully wrought
And give our plans to the light through the enclosing skin
More lights join and beckon us forward
So clothed in light, we need no other
Carried on beams we can relax and sigh
Giving up control, knowing it was never there

It dawns on us in the festive company of stars
That Life is bigger and wiser than us
More safe and expansive than our puny machinations
We give up, give in, to the gentle arms of Source
Unadorned by baubles, bangles and beads
And other proof of our frail success

The Skin of Life now enfolds us
We become it; it becomes us
Its wrinkles, rips and warps are our roots
Which Rise through us to our Wings of Wonder
As gratitude infuses our every cell
Our every moment

Standing on the cliff edge of every new dawn
We ask, “Who am I to be today?”
Our wings unfurl and the planless day unfurls beneath us
As gorgeous grace guides our every wing-beat
So, naked and clothed only in life’s skin
We have no need to see ahead
But as we do, the irony of life is not lost
As our heart and others relax in unison
Into the Grand Order of Divinity

See more poems in Glass Soul, published as both a paperback and an ebook.