Change

How to embrace all parts of ourselves

Even those wicked, treacherous parts

That bring others (and ourselves) misery?

How to make friends with the darkness

Inside us, acknowledge these inner demons

Without agreeing or abiding?

We must explore as much as we can

About ourselves, or so says the therapist

But some people find the journey itself

Too awful, the changes too painful

No wonder some of us believe in magic

In miracles, in prayer. We need to 

Believe in something outside of ourselves, our minds

Accepting responsibility for who we are and

How we act but not for how we think and feel

Tricky territory, it seems

What is the task?

Peeling layer upon layer 

Ripping open the wounds

Or only carefully touching them gently

As if with healing hands and hearts?

No nakedness needed here, we still

Must protect ourselves and each other

Hoping, dreaming about a time and space

Full of only love

Light without darkness

Good without evil

Sounds like hell 

Boring, too much light

Without the grit of nightmares

Too much harmony without the dissonance

That entertains and exposes the chaos

Balance. Does that work?

Balancing between two opposites

Walking the high wire between tall buildings

Tiptoeing across the narrow log 

Between the cavernous cliffs

And the crashing waters below?

Creating our own lives as best we can

Breathing in and out into the lives

Of all others, beasts, humans

Plants, rocks, all of life

Consorting with and mingling 

With all types of breath and names

Values and lifestyles, we call us One