Life is all about rhythms – they are the heartbeat of existence,
There’s the annual marking of time that says another year passed,
New year’s comes again with its fireworks and hopeful statements,
Changing the calendar numbers and resolutions for a better me
Hair greying and another number added to experience.
Then within in each year there is the shift in seasons,
From cool winters to scorching summers,
Short days that feel cut off too quickly – not enough done,
To days lengthening that bring the swooping magpies …
Their fierce protection tell me the cycle of life is about to begin again.
Rhythms remind me that life has its limits – I am finite and life will end.
As the numbers have added up in my life I see that I am not invincible,
And, life is not so much about the words that I say, and there are plenty of them,
I know that it really is the silences that speak more about my what’s in my heart,
Once I thought that poems needed to rhyme because this is what life is like,
That was the simplicity of youth that thought everything would have a happy ending.
Nowadays I struggle with a poem that rhymes or has the perfect form,
I look for poems that match life’s rhythms – they don’t follow the primary school verse rules,
Remember the ones that we were taught to make sure that every second line rhymes?
These poems really don’t interest me much at all, For me poetry is
not the search for the perfect rhyme, it’s all about the imagination discovering words,
That speak to the heart of the creative source from where I came.
Then there is my desire for a deeper rhythm that can be my guiding light,
It’s the rhythm that satisfies the endless searching of philosophy’s deepest questions,
But, then go even deeper to seek out the nature of love’s truest source,
As the years of my life are counted up I find that this is the place where I spend most of my time,
Sure I worry about bills and family and what people say and where we will go for a holiday,
But, the place I really want to spend the most time is the shortest and longest distance to travel,
When I am busy I often will neglect it and I find that my life is overwhelmed
my list of things to do becoming a burden that I can never be free of.
It’s then I seek out that deeper rhythm or I die. I know this sounds dramatic,
but this is the truth I had to learn the hard way. I remember the despair that came
when I forgot about the sacred rhythm my life was always intended to follow.
Recently the glimpses back to the despair are always held in the light of Beauty’s words to me.
Rhythms exist in love and friendships – They require the regular pulse of new blood…
Without this fresh flow painful bruises arise are evidence of a lack of fresh life and
show the world the blows that caused them to come to the surface.
Sooner or later these blows will leave their mark on the relationship,
they can be healed but the violence that they began from also needs healing.
Love and friendships hold the capacity to delight and disappoint. Joy and sadness
are always close at hand when my heart is opened wide to another’s.
And I have have felt the worst and best of these. Love’s ebbs and flows, and lost,
friendships cherished and friendships missed are all part of life’s rhythms.
I feel the pain of a love torn apart, the wrenching of a broken heart,
and I know the pain of when a friendship is painfully discarded,
by the one that is loved. Even when I would have died for what I cherished most,
I realised too late that something had already died between us – The rhythm of life and death
doesn’t forget the beat that continues as life pushes me ever forward. But, I will
continue to love, forgive and trust. These are far better than allowing disappointment’s
painful blows to only leave hate, anger and anxiety…
It’s not just the fun times and shared moments that mark the progress of my most loved friendships,
sadness is also the painful reminder that life continues to remember my name. I am not forgotten
even in the midst of a world of broken hearts, my painful cries are heard.