You will not find a drop of water here,

Not in this leaden poem.

No ray of light, or moon glow.

Don't expect a juicy peach,

Or any fuzzy word.

No rhyme is promised,

No metered verse -

But as it wills.



It may or may not feed,

That thirst to lull

Away life's demands,

Or browning flower bed.

This thing you read will not give,

Or fill forgotten promises,

Or more,

One remembered.



For in this verse, is a walk-about,

An aboriginal journey,

A gaping grave,

Eye of empty well,

And if a penny's wish you make,

Beware,

For it pulls you in,

You'd think you are a planet

Precessed from it's orbit.

For falling sets heavy momentum.

You'd scream but find that voice betrays -

Muted, null, nilch -

In this nightless night -

Obsidian sharp.

Think abandoned?

Yes!

No promise kept. Not one.

Or any silvery sound.



Stone pulled inward,

shut out from light to illusion feed,

For hope is folly, if lit from without,

Or assumed all hope is equal.

And faith is false if found in other.



It must be birthed,

The worst contractions,

Don't even ask for relief.

There exists no numbing ether,

No anesthetizing mandrake root,

To cushion faith's hard journey.



Fear is the midwife of faith.

So hold her hand and breathe.

For faith is not a birth-given right,

Nor gifted from without.

But wombed, torn, ripped,

And spit back out -

By none but death itself.



There may be faith,

An unseemly seed,

Buried beyond all sight,

Hidden it stays until no sundial,

Nor clocks cuckooed toll,

But by your own life's folly,

Fool's fortune'd ribbon unfolds.



This all because you believe

Your life is really yours.



So will be time to roll the stone,

Shut down the noise within.

Then will be time to turn from all,

And all will turn as well.

And at each starved knock,

Life will turn away

Like a slammed shudder,

"just one last dream!,

I've lost them all!," you beg,

And another black ball rolls over.

Like if a god learned "tough love"

From your very mother.



Life will withhold as long as you fight

Against the dying dream,

It will not feed your heart with hope

Through all your kicks and screams.

Life will bring you down to death,

Count to ten and more,

Count and count, beyond all counts,

Till counting's done, and

Consciously unconscious,

Babbling infinite rounds,

One plus one plus one, and

Giddily you gladly breathe

The dirt with face flat to floor.


This entered tomb is central,

Circles self as vessel,

This crypt, a vortex, sucks you down,

No food, nor remembered verse,

No favorite song to sing.

And boa-like it swallows.

Unhinges cave-like jowels.

For if not obscured, stripped and raped,

And from this death you sneak,

You stand the risk of living dead,

Or deadly living wake.



So let it take you down complete,

Let your thirst for life dry up.

Look not for roots, nor tree of life,

Look not for the riverbed.


Not until you have no choice,

But forced by graver force,

And relinquish hope that

Hope can dream,



Will you wake

anew to life,

And only then within you know,

That life itself ,

Is gift enough.


Until dropped down from boxing shadows,

And angels' arrow takes aim,

Open your heart to pointed spear

Driven to cast you proof

And emptied, shelled, and hollowed,

So hallow'd will be your truth.


Life will not believe you live

Until in Life's arms you die,



When clock is crushed,

left with nothing but

the very breath you breathe,

then a golden speck may seek

you out, as rain on wilting leaf.



So in this winded time take flight,

for divinely given gave,

a chance to drop illusion's tongue,

so Grace may light your way.



Mimi Gauthier
March 20, 2005