The Victory Way

 Raised in bitterness and shame

Always seeking sweetness

though it had no name

the unknown quality of it,

Something the baby heart remembered from before.

Too little to need religion in that time of no teaching,

But still here with the will to tell the difference between love

and no love....

Somewhere along the way, I lost the compass -

confusing fear with familiarity,

taking meanness for humor,

being stirred in response to danger

finding serpents when I needed a fish.

The muffled voice of God makes real efforts to cut through my misdirected longing.

We are aliens here, amid rules of conduct and appropriate goals.

Trying on one smiling face after another

each burning skin

but to fit in

somewhere,

to be allowed to sit at the fire and have a story heard

the naked self must be concealed.

It doesn't take long, though, before the shield

becomes too leaden.  too hot, 

too cold,

too broken -

the bits blown about by a rising wind.

If I could breathe in that wind

and informed by it, take what I have learned,

and heal all the suffering and bloody masked faces?

If we,

If I

could be free enough to dance beneath the Moon

knowing to the bone

The Victory Way