The Wonderful Game

Well, sweet heart, here we are again, today.
How many times have we arrived here?
How many different ways have we lived today?
Twenty six thousand times for me.
How many for you?
And what grand drama
Are we part of in our todays?
How many more to live through?
I wonder sometimes about a key.
I’m sure I have it somewhere,
As I have often opened a door
To the beginning of things,
When it was the first day – every day,
The day of Creation,
When I and all the creatures
Are known to each other
In that glorious dance.

And the song,
So much to sing
And I, starting so frail.
But that is part of my song,
The pain and strength in frailty.
The struggle, like any runt,
To get enough,
To stand amongst those
Heavier and stronger.
Or even to grow with less leaves
Held to the sun.

Runts have big eyes though,
And look in the shadows
Where events have pushed them,
Seeing, if they dare, strange dreams,
Grand visions of forces moving human life.
Like the invisible wind,
Powers push and guide us,
While many, hands full of grasping,
Rush to the next hill to stand upon,
Or beat their drum to draw attention,
And fail to look up, or down, or in.

Therefore I sing of grand vistas,
Of unacknowledged shadows
Haunting people and damaging children.
I sing the song of ancestors,
Of the hidden treasures
Deep in the ocean of sleep,
Or even there in the shallows
Of daily experience,
If only we would reach for them.

But the grand chorus is of Life.
Not the life of work or human love.
I sing the formless mystery behind,
Above, within, outside;
Forever not the same;
Always laughingly moving
Even as it touches us
It hides and bids us chase.
And I, loving it,
Am ever finding and failing
In that wonderful game.

Copyright ©2008 Tony Crisp