In The Midnight Of Thy Tresses
Who can conceive of judging a whole life,
or of granting all in it a pardon,
unless at midnight,
you let us enter your tresses,
know your scent
become as intimate with your light
as anyone ever has.
All images are shadows you once cast
as your search for righteousness
made others seem wrong
The shadows will gladly surrender
their identity
and reveal the potential within
the way a piece of paper would
if it ever made love to a great flame.
It is often difficult to make a decision without judgement. As soon as we eyeball someone, we're judging them. We're juding the way they dress, their weight, the way they talk, their past, their present, or anything that comes to the surface. And yet, it is with these same superficial "facts" we come to condemn them. It doesn't matter that the smell of chocolate chip cookies can bring her happiness at 9 AM, or that he wakes up early to make her coffee. It doesn't matter that he goes home each night to being a loving father, or that she works the nightshift to pay for a child of a man who is never there. It doesn't matter that she loves the color blue, and not just any blue, but the blue part of the rainbow when the sun is shining once more, or that he hums showtunes in the shower. Business exectuive, bum, burn-out, has-it-made, we categorize and in this way "contaminate" everyone before we really "meet" them (especially these days with social media).
But do we really know anyone? I suspect only a precious few. Even then, it's our own version of them that survives and manifests itself every time we think of them, talk to them, or talk about them. And in this way, we select, eliminate, alter, exaggerate, minimize, glorify, and vilify them - and in the end, it creates its own reality.
It's best to remember we all contain multitudes and that knowing a small facet of someone hardly constitutes as knowing them at all.
Who can conceive of judging a whole life,
or of granting all in it a pardon,
unless at midnight,
you let us enter your tresses,
know your scent
become as intimate with your light
as anyone ever has.
All images are shadows you once cast
as your search for righteousness
made others seem wrong
The shadows will gladly surrender
their identity
and reveal the potential within
the way a piece of paper would
if it ever made love to a great flame.
It is often difficult to make a decision without judgement. As soon as we eyeball someone, we're judging them. We're juding the way they dress, their weight, the way they talk, their past, their present, or anything that comes to the surface. And yet, it is with these same superficial "facts" we come to condemn them. It doesn't matter that the smell of chocolate chip cookies can bring her happiness at 9 AM, or that he wakes up early to make her coffee. It doesn't matter that he goes home each night to being a loving father, or that she works the nightshift to pay for a child of a man who is never there. It doesn't matter that she loves the color blue, and not just any blue, but the blue part of the rainbow when the sun is shining once more, or that he hums showtunes in the shower. Business exectuive, bum, burn-out, has-it-made, we categorize and in this way "contaminate" everyone before we really "meet" them (especially these days with social media).
But do we really know anyone? I suspect only a precious few. Even then, it's our own version of them that survives and manifests itself every time we think of them, talk to them, or talk about them. And in this way, we select, eliminate, alter, exaggerate, minimize, glorify, and vilify them - and in the end, it creates its own reality.
It's best to remember we all contain multitudes and that knowing a small facet of someone hardly constitutes as knowing them at all.
“Who, what am I? My answer: I am everyone, everything whose being-in-the-world affected me and was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow the world.” ― Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Crossroads (1999), Jim Brickman
"Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good -- be good for something." - Henry David Thoreau
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