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The Language of the Soul
John Erickson
Many of our thoughts remain unexpressed. We're trained to stay silent until we can phrase things in a proper, tidy package, safe from ridicule. Free‑verse (as I selfishly see it) exposes the flecks of light that spark our most passionate of thoughts - before they form a dry crust lining a scarcely used area of the brain. Without this, we're left with an existence in which we recite nothing more the dry statistics of the day's routine.
There is a mystical power accompanying the extemporaneous expression of inspiration. It grabs the soul with unhindered immediacy — such that it becomes the most intimate state of verbal communication possible in this natural world. (The content is another matter, inasmuch as it is appreciated on a more subjective level.)
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Renewed Spirit, Warring Ego
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© John Erickson
The Spirit soars at morning's break
Unhindered by matter
Energized by light
"All is possible," Spirit proclaims
While intellect awakens to hop a ride.
Intellect nudges Ego.
"All is possible" Ego repeats in blissful ignorance. "I revel in my power," it hamfistedly concludes.
The body stirs, grasping its environment in hopes of molding it to the ego's will.
The leaden material world keeps Ego in check with its uncooperative heft and impliability.
"Lies!" Ego rages to Spirit. "You inspire me with fictions! You lure me into consciousness that I may waste my day on vain labors."
"You are deceived," Spirit counters. "Possibility is not license. I open the doors. You're tasked to morph the Will such that it does not violate the pure. Greater worlds await - but not without order.
"Fear not humility. Your power is too faint to craft what you seek. Submission to the Source is your power. Let the bondage of errant cravings and corrupt visions be burned away by the bitter forfeiture of your claims to power, that greater power may be known: not by you - but for you."
© John Erickson
Nature's heartbeat regenerates our existential envelope
with spring's font of resurrected life.
In the fields and glades it yields its enlivening message to the Seeker:
"Nothing here today; go back to bed."
I argue [I like to argue:]
"But is not all life of merit?
Are not all seasons possessed of a restorative energy?"
Nature responds,
"Look around you. Do you feel inspired by this downfall of frozen dander
which, if it had its way,
would encapsulate you until it drew every last degree of bodily warmth from you
and laugh as you struggled to jot a few romanticized lines before you succumbed?"
I pondered the wisdom to which I was privy in that moment.
The rapturous state of communing with life's great sphere of wordless enlightenment
can blind one to the pockets of pointlessness into which it can shove us from time to time.
Though the voice of nature can be inspiring, sometimes it's just a jerk.
© John Erickson
Life overlaps eternity
The green of nature imperfectly restraining a luminous fuel for the soul
A revelatory whisper
Heard in the isolated life-stations which ambush us spontaneously as we traverse the landscape
Speaking to us of life's worthiness
in a wordless articulation which remains with the beholder.
© John Erickson
The will robust, the environment bleak
deceptively suggesting light awaits
should one press on
each step merely draining the light within oneself.
Hope thunders with rage. Light's reality lies within
but unseen
the eye distracted by the promiseless glare of conventionality.
Arise, my soul, ascend the leaden enormity of the world's empty impositions
Lay claim to the light which set you aflame.
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