CROSSING
The water is one thing, and one thing for miles.
The water is one thing, making this bridge
Built over the water another. Walk it
Early, walk it back when the day goes dim, everyone
Rising just to find a away toward rest again.
We work, start on one side of the day
like a planet’s only sun, our eyes straight
Until the flame sinks. The flame sinks. Thank God
I’m different. I’ve figured and counted. I’m not crossing
To cross back. I’m set
On something vast. It reaches
long as the sea. I’m more than a conqueror, bigger
Than bravery. I don’t march. I’m the one who leaps.
(credit The Tradition. Copyright 2019 by Jericho Brown.copied here from poets.org)
The Pulitzer Prize, in 2020, was awarded to Jericho Brown for poetry. His compilation of original verse and ” masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence”. ( The preceding quote is found on the Pulitzer Prize Web page.)
I have to admit that Mr. Brown’s volume, The Tradition does not yet grace my personal library. Other than his poem Crossing , I have not had the pleasure to read his other poems to be found in his volume, entitled The Tradition.
Last month I promised to find an example in literature that gives us a clue to what the veils in our lives are covering. It is easy to find poems focused on veils as metaphors, as examples, and simply as veils! So why did I choose Mr. Brown’s wonderful poem, Crossing? This past year current events stridently interrupt me as I attempted to hear my silence. I understand Jericho Brown’s Tradition is eloquently in the present. The Crossing can be understood ( at least by me) to reflect our response to to the institutional hate, violence and evil that is raising it’s ugly head daily in our neighborhoods by marching in protest. We are people separated by our divisive politics, our economic stresses and a pandemic that evidently does not exist for many people who follow the leader “who wears no clothes” because he is immune to what he thinks is a common cold!
So the Crossing shows me another way to rend a veil. Don’t lift it with a sweep of your arm or a breath; yours, hers , or the wind. Walk through it or march through it with a conquest of bravery. Or better still, don’t march, be the one who leaps!
Many highly creative souls will experience the tug- of- war between the ego and the spirit because they are struggling to rend the veil. they are attempting to access the higher self from the inner self. The ego may have learned to tolerate the soul memory but it wants no part of the spirit world. (Excerpt from page 151, Bridges Of Consciousness by Kathy Oddenino R.N.)
I believe rending the veil is the purpose of my life. The veil is not a curtain covering insight into past lives. The veil is the curtain that prevents each of us from integrating the peace of our soul and the joy of our inner spirit.
The daily dramas that we are all witnessing today, (and many of us are sadly living in), are purely negative. Egos streaming together and in effect screaming for our attention. Why? Judgemental fear, clothed in anger or worse.
As I try to focus on my silence in peace while leaning against my lighthouse I again ask you to join me with the blanket of positiveness, warmly and calmly enhancing the moments of change that brings smiles.
Thank you for reading and stay safe!
Mark