Poetry Monday: "Heresies"

Many of us head back to our offices today for our first 5 day work week in almost a month.  When I was looking for an appropriate poem, this one came to mind.  It was first published in Poetry East.

I'm not thrilled with the way that it ends, but I decided to leave it.  Not every poem of mine ends on a happy, uplifting note, after all.  And the title of the poem may mean that the ending needs to stand.

On this first full work week of 2017, I wish for us all that our Monday is not a day designed by Pharisees, but by people full of grace and light.


Heresies


I am having a day designed by Pharisees:
tangled in doctrine and hierarchy and that desperate
hope that order can be constructed
out of chaos—and it could,
if we would just all follow the rules.

This orderly world, rigid to the point of strangulation,
keeps me safe. He says it’s an illusion,
but it’s one I like. Unready
for one crying in the wilderness, I try
to turn away, and yet he lures
me with promises of new life.

I want to be open to the mysteries,
to see the Light beyond these dramas
on the wall of my cave. But when I glimpse
it, I curse and beg to be left to my hibernation.
I do not know how to burn that celestial flame.

I want to be ready for resurrection,
to feel my edges blur, to eat that one heavenly
food. I want new life. But on this day,
I cannot leave my old patterns behind. I succumb
to the temptations of fretfulness and depression.