Detour
Tim was a poet but lost for words as he pondered the meaning of the cross
Sat by the road side of his inner world and wondered which way to proceed
His bones were weary his skin was parched the soul spired in lost ground
He was confused for left and right up down and across or around everything
Seemed to be steeped in towering void and the horizon an endless trapdoor
All begins in the womb and ends in a tomb or just scant dust strewn into the past
If I do nothing a gaping hole will swallow me in one without being whole
And while I go nowhere I won’t know where the path might have led to
A vertical vortex but surely there must be more than a circumscribed path
All streets lead to City by the Tiber and if in Rome do as the Romans
But they had nailed the Saviour to the cross in very unsavoury fashion and
Tim was of Prussian descent forged in discipline and meticulous reason
His ancestors had contorted the rood and taken the purified name of the Lord
In vain had moulded history into swords Lebensraum and the Swastika
Beyond all words and within all things they had spread the heart blood of Satan
And their demons onto the field of Flanders and the vast Russian plains quite
A cross to bear nailed into subconscious conscience and vile thorny crowns
Humanity had passed the test of cruelty aberration and contempt of the world
Tim had no faith left in Jesus and his motherly virgin left in the nib of his pen
So he turned East where the sun rises without fail and a fig tree stood tall
Portrayed an endless knot of wisdom rather than rigid perpendicular branches
Cross legged in the lotus position and his limbs stretched to infinite limits but
No wounds in wrists and ankles scarring and scaring hell bent idols and icons
Tim listened to Oms spinning the sound of the earth and imagined chanting
Bowls saffron robes and a third way unobscured by trivia and punishment
Four noble truths and an eightfold path surely surpassed beams at right angles
A lotus flower appeared a symbol of purity of body speech and mind with all
Roots rooted in mud where outcome detachment slides off easily from its petals
He would not cast any stones although he longed for pebbles thrown into an
Ocean of love and compassion and concentric circles of infinite kindness
His loin cloth came loose for he lost weight in contemplation and boulders
Of hopelessness shed from his shoulders lifted his spirits lightened the load
No more cave and no huge rock no mysterious lofty ascent to what some might
Call glorious heaven no sin nor penance but a clear path to end the suffering of
All suffering for all sentient beings one plain message one serene step at a time
As his wounds healed and scabs fell like ashes into winds of everlasting change
Tim levitated and finally grasped how to go forward and far away from the cross
28th February 2019
Copyright © Kai Michael Neumann | Year Posted 2019
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