another six months....

it's been shown to me that i must wait....
i must wait longer than i can even imagine waiting....

i am learning a new vocabulary of waiting....

i have been told that time is completely meaningless in the other world....
they dance and sing while we wait....
they forget what it's like to be human --
to feel the bindings of gravity....
the churnings of the hours and minutes....

by the time they finish their favorite song,
and take a breath,
and turn around,
six months have gone by, and
we are lying on the bottom of the valley of the shadow of death again....
to their great surprise....

just when our last ragged breath shatters our aching lungs,
they laugh and flow back in through golden threads....
scooping us up in their light, loving arms....
reassuring us of the simultaneity of perfection and imperfection....

while we writhe and moan, they hum and knit....

and another six months go by....

it's nice to know that there is dancing and singing in the other world,
while we flail around here with our plans and our will....

until we understand the grace of loving....
we can fight and fall down all we want....

the dancing and singing do not stop
just because we're caught in the webs of desire....

some days i skip down this sticky web, pausing, balancing,
massaging a sore toe, then skipping on....

equipoise.... for a while....

other days i find that sore toe has caught somewhere and
the more i struggle to extract myself,
the more intractably i am wrapped....

trapped, a fat fly in a gossamer coffin....

release comes when i cease those frantic efforts and become still....
dehydrated and red-faced, waiting....

silence descends....

and far too late, but absolutely on time,
angels come tripping in....

and another six months has gone by....

closer and closer to whatever's next,
i am learning to dance and sing....
to laugh,
to love radically,
and without explanation or excuse....

it's easier to do all this waiting
while in love with everyone....

anguishing....
languishing....
embracing....

another six months....

and once in a while,
in the silence....

laughter --

like golden bells through summer windows....

_________________
© 2011
Beth Anne Boardman