poem: let me cry and let there be music

Ata Kando
From “Dream in the Forest”
1957

Become water

Be ocean

 

Become light

Be sun

 

Become dirt

Be earth

 

Breath

Become life itself.

 the grief of love lost?

Love not loved nor given?

 

Ach, a loneliness so surreal,

like a huff of glue it swans and fans out

swirls and hangs out in body and mind.

 

But I’m not *air quotations* lonely

 

Children’s dainty laughter float as bubbles

Or hand in hand they play

Mothers that cut up fruit

Dads set up the barbeque

 

They didn’t mention being free was this lonely

Grief is just love with nowhere to go

So I take this suffering and swallow it whole:

 

To become suffering

Be still

Breath

And be life again.