Polarities

Another poem naive

Photo courtesy of Stanford Magnetics

Polarities.
Last. First. Best. Worst.
Beyond, before, behind the door
The only, the set, the win, the bet,
The gold and the lead, 
The hunger, the bread.
The Sun and the Moon, 
The knife and the spoon.

The timid and bold, the young and the old,
Underground passage and overground plane
Waterfall roaring and silent closed drain
Loving your life but hating yourself
Bare-walled kitchen with overstuffed shelf.

Wide-faced feeling with an atrophied soul
Lion hid bleeding while safari jeeps roll
Mad dog barking with teeth all bared,
Silent cat sleeping, alert and prepared.
Loud-mouthed idiots braying out lies
Quiet ideas, shared with the wise.

And the world longs forever, to free the life force
That stays bound and shackled and numbed with remorse
Who can stay true, of those who can hear,
Who can touch it and see it but then disappear
And turn from the truth that can't be denied
Wringing their hands, "Oh, at least Lord I tried!"

Then in that place that we go to exist
Where the sound of our mind, busy making a list,
Is all that we hear, and that list just keeps growing
"Who cares what's behind, who cares what I'm knowing."
For nothing can stop or challenge me still
If I have the strength, if I have the will!

But then somewhere, a bell, tells me each time it's struck
There's a part of me somewhere that somehow is stuck
And though I blow hot and cold, knowing it all,
That little part patiently waits for the fall
And as it all crashes and catastrophe reigns
It picks me back up, and with patience explains
It's now that the learning really begins
And with every failure, comes little wins.

‘Till all that polarity gives up what its got
As it cancels itself or gets tied in a knot
And then we are left for a minute or two
With a space made for breathing and seeing a few
Of the beautiful things that each day and each hour
Each second and micro-division can power
And then at that moment when true peace prevails
We list again all of life's loves and travails.

For only the bad can show us what's good
Polarity separates trees from the wood
The bright sunny day is meaningless passed
If a cloud never pauses and causes contrast
The feelings we fear, and avoid, and refuse
Are part of the balance we sometime must choose
And shadows grow sharper in dazzling light
Before they return to their world of the night.

What was unseen is listed at last
And with that last list, the worst has gone past
Before there can be any sense of the space
That comes when we back ourselves out of the race
Where all is aligned and we know that we
Are happy and satisfied, pure, and quite free
All of this comes from this musing of mine
That polarity waits for a person to find.

So
Here is to black and it’s opposite white
One every colour, the other pure light
Here’s to a smile that so easily frowns
When the greatest jokes come from old scary clowns
Here is to rushing, then standing quite still
Here’s to the window, and here’s to it’s sill
To lovers and haters, they need to be seen
The timid, the loud, the generous and mean.

Here’s to the journey that never can end
And the strangers you find there that turn into friends
For all of it adds up to only one thing
As sure as a winter turns into a spring
That balance, that contrast, can still only be
The different polarities that make you and me.