The True Chapters of Life
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Category: Living & Dying

ddangler

Two Sides of Myself

Living & Dying

My spirit, my soul, two places inside.
One yearns for light, while the other one hides.
My spirit I’ve known most of my life, but ran from my soul, and hid from its strife.

Spirit so light, inspired and true, it brings happiness of what’s understood
But leaves out ones dark other half soo unknown, to go there inside may take all that we own

A path so destined yet a path lesser known, as we’ve seen now with Gollam, it cuts to our bone.  It holds the true marrow of our enticing desires, it pumps the blood of our mysterious fires.

The rise of the sun, the dark winters moon, the whispers, the urges, they come all too soon. Can’t deny or ignore what shade can’t obscure, the voice that gives life when our dark night implores.

We want spirit for rest so light on its feet, but the soul ignites darkness that makes us complete. Yet we avoid our own longings, we run from ourselves and bury our treasure that holds our true wealth.

Awakened we fall, lay prone in our shell, exhausted with doubt, too empty to tell.
We think we’ve been taken like a fools widowed bride, and suddenly we see what we’ve been trying to hide.

That’s when we’re most human, our soul shows its face, like the shine of her curl that hides her frail face.  This place I didn’t chose, its pain did not lie, when I’d thought I’d get goodness, I was left without pride.

Then hate and anger dispelled the myth of my spirit I’d made up inside.
Yet in that black moment, out spilled white pearls of wealthly suprise.

And though i found joy in my spirit so light,
I found what I’d lost in the dark soul of night.

dd     2008

ddangler

Great American Pasttime

Living & Dying

Faces, a sea of faces
The smell of fried and grilled heart attacks waiting to happen
Voices both loud and small, meek and obnoxious
In that moment make up our ocean

She and I float among this sea of people
Bobbing up and down, waiting for just the right
crack, that will erupt into a swell of exuberance

We rode the wave in together and felt what it was like to be human in a sea
of smiling faces including our own
Our histories would record that insignificant ‘crack of the bat’ moment

And remind us what it meant to be together in this moment as daughter and father

dd- 2011

ddangler

Fully Human

Living & Dying

We need others, not to stay alive, but to be fully human: to be affectionate, funny, playful, to be generous.
How genuine is my capacity to love if there is no one for me to love, to laugh with, to treat tenderly, to be trusted by, even be hurt by.

I can love an idea, but i can’t throw my arms around it. Unless there is someone to whom I can give myself, in whose hands I can entrust my dreams, who will forgive me my deformities, my aberrations, to whom i can speak the unspeakable, then I am not human.

This is what it means to be fully human.

-dd           March 2017

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