Susan Vaisian
Trifling fingers, exploring without grasp
Searching mother's bosom, mouth failing to clasp.
We were born yesterday, struggling to feed to live
Yet a family, religion and nation, ready to receive and give.
A world for us to see, taste, smell, hear and feel
The brain capturing smiles, many a hearty meal.
The nerves learning defense, trusting muscle memory
Wiring a body with habit, emotion, hypocrisy.
Repeating mistakes, a looping learning curve
While the body grew, with an ego to preserve.
Shuttling back and forth, a quiver of defenses
As images of oneself, through misperceived lenses.
Lost in thinking while found in thought
Desire versus destiny, faith versus doubt.
Choices influenced by those in power or fame
All determined by an instant gratification game.
Thinking we know, immersed in ignorance
Yet molding this darkness as a being of prudence.
Celebrating ourselves behind veils of maturity
Contesting talent, style and opportunity.
Falling in companionship, pleasure and fantasy
Until worlds eclipse over phases of stagnancy.
There are two of us now struggling to see
Through presumptuous flares of fallacy.
Gender roles drawing limits to dreams
Interpreting circumstances as karmic regimes.
Becoming what we do, the healer or the healed
With that innate tendency of selfishness sealed.
Analysing every move and word in time
Surreptitious paranoia attempts to climb
Across barriers of infinite space and causation
Breaking years of conditioning for realisation.
Watching joy in the eyes of truth
Empathising with the naïve youth.
Mirrors of versions of the self in hindsight
Ego is now a thriving parasite.
Trying to stop what appears to be true
While excavating ideas that the mind wants to pursue.
Wondering whether this soul is all alone
Or if all this knowledge is already known.
Is a lifetime enough to analyze these notions
With all the misperception and reckless emotions.
Can we ever know who this really is?
Is living enough to understand bliss?
Maybe death is part of the cycle of knowing
Without which the patterns keep flowing.
Meeting strangers like long lost friends
It's a circle now, without dead ends.
Unravelling each past, burning each layer
Practicing tumultuous faith and prayer.
Retaining the breath with a strong diaphragm
What remains is an observer, a sacrificial lamb.
Witnessing love transcend the duality
Of birth and attachment, death and antipathy.
The past and the future have merged into us
Pure and impure are superfluous.
All the words in the world to express this human program
Now reduced to two little burdened ones meaning "I am".