The End of Striving

THE REWAKENING

Sooner or later
we must come to an end
of striving

to re-establish
the image the image of
the rose

but not yet
you say extending the
time indefinitely

by
your love until a whole
spring

rekindle
the violet to the very
lady-slipper

and so by
your love the very sun
itself is revived

Pictures from Brueghel

and other poems

William Carlos Williams

&

I came to the end of striving. This thought is frightening to mot of us because we are programmed to strive… strive to accomplish our dreams. I once wrote (in A Taxi Romance: The Ride of the Night), when I was at my most profound spiritual bottom, that without our aspirations we are but wingless worms. I was looking at things from a pretty negative perspective and drowning in self-centered self-pity. As in the old slave song, love lifted me. The Heart of Compassion opened up my heart to the beauty of life. It came in a moment of surrender… surrender to what? It could have been a single act of kindness and grace… an arrangement of flowers… a garden pond. I wrote A Taxi Romance about that. She was my Kuan Yin (the Chinese goddess of compassion). She was there long enough to set my feet on the path and then she was gone… like she was sent for that purpose... and so by love the very sun itself is revived.

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