Today’s Sunday morning Wake-Up Call comes in the form of something resembling poetry.
I love poetry, but am not a poet. Don’t know a couplet from a croissant. When, on occasion, something resembling verse tumbles out of me, I usually hear it as spoken word in my head. It’s more lyrics than verse. That’s what guides me. Rules be damned.
So, here we go with today’s poetry-ish Wake-Up Call. Be gentle.
The Window
You speak about it
As if it were a portal
To your potential
What lies through it
You see, oh God, you see
Yet you cannot touch
Or breathe
Or be
Waiting and wondering
When will someone come
To lift the pane / the pain
‘Til you wake
Should you wake
To the window’s reframe
There is no savior
Pushed-up sleeves
No unsung hero
Only you
Still you deny
Who am I
To set myself free
It’s been so long,
Painted over, nailed down
Prematurely bound
Yet, in the stillness
Before the pane
You come to believe
“There is no path to freedom
That does not go through me”
So you come to the frame
Feeling, groping
Raging into time-worn sutures
Shaking, heaving
Teasing
Kneading
Bathed with effort’s dew
Flesh on wood
Slowly
It yields
Yawning open
You breathe
Shallow, testing sips
Then deeper / Deeper
Inhaling possibility
Potential once obscured
Now revealed
Exhaling the wail
Of loneliness and futility
Of complacent disconnection
You pause
Lean in, and look
No longer apart
But not yet a part
Of that world
Out there
And then it happens
Reality tumbles softly over the sill
Into the reservoir
of your crossed legs
Conspiring into the soul
To what use
Asks its voice
Will you put this portal
Will you simply sit, and gaze
Flirting with the scent
Of a life that calls
Illuminated, yet still
Sedated
A denizen of breath and sight
Subsisting on wisps of essence
Yet never taking your seat
With friends
To feast
To weave
To span the chasm
From what if
To this shall be
Or will you
In some way, your way
Traverse the frame
To set ablaze
A world that
Only you can claim
And then you notice
A deeper truth
The window, it seems
Is not an end, but an invitation
A passage to invention
It was never about the window
But the will to step through it
And then you wonder
How can I
And then you realize
How can I not
Wake-Up Call #3 | Journal & Conversation Prompt:
If you’re inclined, take a few minutes to write what you feel in response to the words above, but even more, to the questions below.
Don’t think, just let it flow. Then, if you’re inclined share with someone close and let it become a conversation. Or, join in the comments (for full access Wakers, if you’re up for it).
What does the window represent in your life?
What do you see when you look through it?
What does life out there look and feel like?
What might your first step through it be?
Look forward to seeing and hearing what arises!
Beautiful! The call to “save the only life you can save” and to step into the conversation of life, where as David Whyte calls it the hinge that lies in the center of your heart. These moments before the window, when one world ends and another begins with a simple crack open and letting the wind blow through.
Beautiful, Jonathan.