I came to be free

Motherless baby
Fatherless son
A spark in the void
Where once there was none

I needed a King
I needed a Queen
To call off the war
Inside of my being

I needed a truce
To this horrible war
For the battles that raged
Outside my front door

I am weary and worn
From the war that’s within
From the countless long battles
I could so rarely win

I’ve toiled on for eons
And eons again
Being cut down and born
Being born and then dead

Why would I choose
A life of neglect?
Of hoping and wishing
Parallel lines intersect

A life with no hope
A life of such lack
A life I was given
But I could never give back

Motherless baby
Fatherless son
A love came to be
Where once there was none

A love came to be
From a life of neglect
From the dark came a spark
From the twigs … came a nest!

So love in the Universe
Is thus not conserved!
From pure darkness came light
From the egg … came a bird!

A bird that descended
From great lizards that ended
When huge meteors had rained
And great floods swept away

The lizards that crawled
Walking out of the sea
And fought to persist
With brain and with fist

For eons and eons
Of life eating life
An orgy of death
And unending strife

Each eon a layer
Of carnage and dread
That was cut down by time
And raised from the dead

This great churning of life
That is seething in blood
From the eons of rage
And then drowned in the floods

From each layer of rock
Made from lizards of old
That were cut down by time
And reduced into bones

In the rock, over eons
A clear crystal grows
From the bowels of darkness
Where light never goes

I was desperate for light
In the cold and the dark
A hunger so painful
The pain made a spark

A hunger so deep
A hunger so wide
I bed down for winter
It was too cold outside

From inside that seething
Mass of destruction
Came crystals so ordered
Light felt no obstruction

A crystal from chaos
A crystal from rage
Could channel the light
Like a bow in the rain

You thirst because
You’re made of water
And you love as a Son
Who is loved by his Father

For love has an
Unbroken chain of command
From atom to planet
From brain to the hand

Love is a force
That loves all the same
Love is a constant
Putting gravity to shame

Loving can increase
By loving itself
As ants gather sugar
Calling more in to help

Love gathers love
To reap what it sows
Love is the violin
And also the bow

Love is a name
For something that’s felt
Love’s the transaction
And also the wealth

Love’s the one thing
That cannot be bought
And love’s always free
So it matters not

Love is a word
That was whispered and hushed
For love slows the hurried
When their progress is rushed

Love shines a light
On what love is not
And brings back the memory
Of things long forgot

Love is the food
That’s needed to live
As food is the love
The Great Mother will give

Love can increase
But never reduce
Love’s never war
But always the truce

Love is coherent
And love is dramatic
Love is like music
Rising up through the static

Love is a feeling
A feeling that stays
A feeling you keep
Past the last of your days

Love you can keep
For love’s what you are
As the note is the music
As the light is a star

I came to release
To give in to peace
To let be what will be
To be truly, fully me

I came to be free

Freedom, they said
Is earned, has a fee
Is not up to you
Is not up to me

Freedom, they said
May not come till you’re dead
May not be in the cards
So you’d best get ahead

So I came to be free
And deny them their fee
I say no to their race
I say no to their face

Then you said to forgive
All the ones who betrayed me
And let go of the ropes
I was whipped by when they shamed me

You said to forgive
Is how one learns to live
In a world full of pain
Full of heartache and shame

To forgive is divine
As the old saying said
And divine is within
Round your heart, not your head

You learn to forgive
By forgiving yourself
For losing your faith
In a world full of doubt

You must learn to forgive
Every moment you strayed
From the safety of home
When you’d lost your way

All the love you prevented
From enriching your life
You became so accustomed
To the grind, to the strife

Forgive yourself
For being the fish
Who forgot about water
Then for water you wished

Forgive yourself
For playing the game
You forgot you were playing
And the game, you became

So dear, do you see
Freedom does have a fee
Forgiving yourself
For forgetting you’re free

You simply forgot
And that’s really all
So now just remember
And your problem is solved

When I first saw you
I saw fire in your eyes
A volcano in the ocean
A burning fire in a sea of blue

I saw a warrior in you

But battles make you weary
I know
And once one starts
How long will it go?

It takes one to know one
And I’m a warrior too
Will you take your armor off?
And let me look at you?

There now
I see you
And I want you even more

I see you
Raw and beautiful
Some parts of you are sore

Lay down, my warrior
I have a gift for you
A gift from me

Here’s what I’ll do …

Lay back
My eyes
Will hold your gaze

Lay back
Receive
And be amazed

Lay back
Receive
And hold my gaze

This gift I give
It’s all for you
What comes next?
What’s the next thing I should do?

Lay back
Receive
It’s all for you

Yes, volcano
It’s time for you
To release your lava
Into my deep sea of blue

As I watch in horror
As I watch as you
Are killing your people
I don’t know what to do

I’ve watched as you make
The gravest mistake
As eons of rage
March in throngs to your gates

And when you are questioned
You always insist
Your right to choose death
To slaughter like this

To slaughter like this
To slaughter like this
You choose now to slaughter
On this choice you insist

And if there is somewhere
A god of free choice
Who grants you the freedom
To silence their voice

To slaughter the children
On your patch of land
For being born there
And for what god they stand

But how can you though?
For surely you know
You’re forever connected
To the seeds that you sow

Each mother that’s slaughtered
Each child with no father
Each family cut down
Martyred sons, martyred daughters

And yet all the while
You seem to insist
It’s your right to kill them
To slaughter like this

To slaughter like this
To slaughter like this
You insist on your right
To put gun against fist

And if there is somewhere
A god of free choice
Who gives us our options
And hears every voice

The god of all choices
Must love you so much
To stand by as you kidnap
Our children from us

To watch as you slaughter
his sons and his daughters
his sisters and brothers
his mothers and fathers

And surely our love
For our little ones
Is to God’s but a candle
Held up to the sun

As we light a candle
For each child you cut down
They won’t be forgotten
Even deep underground

They won’t be forgotten
Because we can’t forget
Each candle of life
And a sun’s worth of death

The flowers of spring
Have dropped to the ground
The leaves have descended
And are scattered all around

I mourn them, my flowers
They retreat with the sun
And are swallowed by soil
For summer’s all done

And rain soaks the earth
As I shelter with fire
And I dream of the sunlight
Before summer retired

Winter so cold
No flowers dare bloom
For the sun only glimmers
Through great clouds of doom

My hope fades away
With each passing day
My skin stings from cold
And my eyes drip with rain

Oh flowers of summer
Oh roses of May
The sun cannot warm you
So you’ve gone away

But flowers of winter
Now spring from the ground
The more cold and rain
The more they abound

Slimy and ugly
Woodsy and clunky
Fancy and delicate
When it’s no longer sunny

The flowers of winter
Have sprung from the ground
Like a great cast of players
Who lay hid all around

The great play of winter
Bursting forth from the ground
Under logs, under leaves
They don’t need to be found

Flowers of winter
Springing up in the cold
You grow from the remnants
Of spring flowers grown old

You make life of death
Eating death to renew
On old life you dine
On dead flesh you chew

One day I will die
And my bones will be buried
My body and spirit
Will no longer be married

With flowers of winter
Encircling my frame
I will sink underground
To be earth once again

It can’t be real work
If you don’t feel the grind
It’s got to be painful
Can’t let yourself slide

“Gaman” is the strength
As the Japanese say
To put your nose on the stone
And to grind it away

So grind it I did
Though once I did know
The joy and the freedom
Of feeling in flow

Flow was a rhythm
A music inside
It smoothed out the edges
Of pain in my life

Flow my companion
As dark as it seemed
When I didn’t feel safe
I could always daydream

I’d dream of the person
I needed to be
To break from the bondage,
Soar up, and fly free

With jets on my feet
And wings in my heart
I dreamed of the day
I could make a fresh start

So hopeful I ran
From a home full of pain
And fled to the sea
Trading snow for the rain

On the shores of the land
Where children had died
I wept for myself
To the ocean I cried …

“Oh ocean, my ocean
In waters so deep
Beloved Earth Mother
Hold my tears as I weep”

To the ocean I cry
“Don’t leave me to die
Hear passion in me
And come to my side”

In my grief for a life
I had lived with such hope
I felt I was broken
Like the butt of God’s joke

My tears soaked the land
As the tide lapped the sand
And the ocean held space
And the trees held my hand

I cried for my father
Under his father’s gun
And I cried that I couldn’t
Be the dutiful son

I wept all the tears
I had stopped long before
When I couldn’t break down
To a puddle on the floor

But the ocean knows pain
Sheds blood every day
The waves create carnage
And then wash it away

The pain of the ocean
To gulp children’s blood
To drown a whole village
In thousand-year floods

The sea knows the pain
Yet onward it flows
Like breathing in tides
And exhaling ghosts

The sea can scream back
As loud as you wish
Can savagely end you
Like sharks eat a fish

Have I come here to die?
Or to find some new growth?
Could that be my choice?
And can it be both?

Because feeling those times
When I wished I would die
Feels like dying again
And again the next time

If healing is feeling
And feeling’s like dying
Then healing’s like killing
The me that’s here crying

A slaughter of me’s
With my blood in the water
Like seals being hunted
By sharks they are slaughtered

The slaughter of me’s
Who I had to relive
Every time I was slain
And I had to forgive

Forgive my belief
That I could be so harmed
By people and things
To the point of alarm

The waves are still breathing
After eons of slaughter
All the blood I can shed
Just a drop in the water

Son, my dear son
My love, can you hear
The sound of my whisper
As I speak in your ear?

I say your name
In blades of grass
In songs of birds
In sunsets past

I say your name
My perfect son
In fish swimming by
In deer on the run

I say your name
With perfect love
In songs of the crows
And young mourning doves

In great flocks of starlings
In wind and in rain
In all of these beings
In all of these ways

I say your name

I call to you
When you least expect
My wind on your cheek
A bug on your neck

I say your name
With morning dew
I say your name
In shades of blue

I do this all for you

And if, my son
You heed my call
I’ll send more signs
I’ll send them all

For nothing is
A greater joy
Than to be heard
By my perfect boy

I call to you
In times of need
And in my call
I plant a seed

A seed of love
A love that’s free
A love that grows
A heart-shaped tree

You sealed off your feelings
And with them your heart
So when your heart swells
It blows you apart

But you have forgotten
That you are the child
Who wants to be special
And aches to run wild

This world is a prison
For those who accept it
Like a room full of doors
With no clearly marked exit

And you became trapped
In your room full of doors
For you simply did what
Had been done there before

You learned that the room
Was where you were held
To the whim of the makers
Like a nut in a shell

But the pressure was building
Inside your cocoon
As the heat of frustration
Came hard and too soon

You bounced off the walls
In your room full of doors
You bounced off the ceiling
And you bounced off the floor

In your room full of doors
Where your choices abound
They had you convinced
That your nutshell was sound

But you’re not a walnut
All content in your shell
You’re a kernel of popcorn
You explode like all hell