Reconciliation

led by acolytes firmly seizing

                                       his elbows

  into a bright and airy loft

                                            mid-way up the

mountain

                 he shuffled, head down, eyes only

              partly open

scheduled for his final

                                     hearing,

                                                  before the

                                                                  Grand Panjandram

      seated on a canvas director’s              

                                                     chair

                                                             draped in hemp shirt,

with open sandals, and cotton shorts

                                                 hair and beard

                                                                         neatly trimmed

                            unexpectedly contemporary

the antithesis of those cheap, cliché paintings

                                                                     that project

a sad and off-putting cement

                                                   image

                                                                 of disdainful power

he rose and extended a hand

                                              and a warm welcoming smile

“So…..tell me the whole story, as best you can;

                                                 I welcome you to this time and space

                        where we are now alone and

                                                                    accompanied by the mountain stream!”

well……I…I…am a little taken aback

                                                            I expected a throne, several court reporters

                                            cameras and lie detectors and a robe…..

 I hear that every time someone comes to tell their story

I can easily imagine

So….I am still eager to hear your story

                                        Well, it is a lot like a river that sometimes

               flows, sometimes stagnates in little eddies

                                                            and frequently crashes over

                                 rocks I never suspected and

                                                 never really prepared to ride

I have heard that picture many times….and I often wonder about the

                           foresight and the intuition of the story-tellers…Have they

             not read or heard about their ancestors crashing over the same kinds of

cataracts ?

the plays and histories

                                   the movies and the poems are

                                                                                 filled with warnings

                   yet we seem to think they must be

                                                                      about all the others, and not me

  It does make me sad to hear how unconscious everyone seems to be

                                                      of the real questions needing address

so…..it seems this story began near water, winds, rocks, trees and small

                                                                                                               houses

                                          with fenced dreams and aspirations

                                                                                  and neighbourhood dogs

                      barking when anyone jumped, climbed or kicked down

                                                                                those fences

mostly men with collars, badges, robes, pills or chalk or whistles

                                              hovered around the fences,

                   watching and waiting for the inevitable iconoclast

  …..in order to remind him of his most minute infraction…

fascinated with their duty to rescue the miscreant from the bottom of the

                                                                               water fall

                                          they designed plans, strategies, tactics and retributions

                  based, they said, on something they called scripture

unfortunately, they probably looked at scripture as fixed, literal and their

                              view included selected epithets?

                        Chafing at many of these interventions

 I struggled with their fences and their rationale

                                                            so that  there seemed to be a

                          scarlet branded “T” on my forehead….

                                                         I quickly learned it meant “truant”

and emitted waves to all others of some kind of danger or apprehension

                                                               as soon as they caught a glimpse

whether and how I added to the ‘myth’ is the focus of

                                              much of my reading and reflecting….

                              No doubt I did!

only later did I meet kindred spirits:

                                                       Heathcliff, Jane Eyre, Hagar Shipley,

                                   Hillman, Birney, Pratt, Layton, Graham and Green

and tripped over, kicked down, took a fist to fences, walls, silences and

                                                                          betrayals

                 that attempted to thwart this river

                                                                        by damming its current

seeming desperate for tenderness,

                                                       at each bend in the river

                             I wondered if there might be another

                                                                                    longing for love

only to be greeted by others escaping, fleeing, drowning their pain or

                                                                   seeking vengeance

                                  and in succession barely escaped

                  drowning, being captured, mis-led, and the

swamp of improbable bribes, deceptions, faux commitments and

                                           even ecclesial courts

Have you ever read that little piece entitled, Footprints?

                      Finally, I think I might be “getting it”

                                       those narrow escapes were the times when

I was being carried across the highest and the most dangerous

                                                                             cliffs

                                 unaware that I was the perpetual self-saboteur

                       repeating, re-inventing, re-creating and re-imagining

all those early

                                       dark nights with the

               .22, the 12 gauge, the canoe, the psych ward, the pills,

                 the cellar wailing wall,

                                                                 and the trauma

that my story was never sought

                                               prior to decisions to exclude, alienate, and dismiss

Please, accept my hand of welcome, acceptance and love,

                                                it was there all along,

                           if only you could have seen it……