One day perhaps the fish will swim
Among the Lincoln Monument,
Recalling through ancestral blood
The petals in the rose garden.
The wheel turns and the cotton spins—
Words become threads
With which to weave
A net to catch our Being in.
Time is like a two-way mirror—
We are there and also here.
Quick as an inhale, the moment arrives
When we feel time’s sickle
Slice straight through our middle,
Dividing the timeline to before and after.
The basement is stocked for a nuclear winter
But I have nothing to eat for dinner.
Now is not a legal fiction, easily traded for Then.
Tomorrow dwells inside the palace of the imagination.
It’s spring that catches in the throat—
A laugh that’s swallowed in surprise—
The light that peels the shadows back
From trees as they adjust their crowns
To hold their silent bombs, the buds,
That no one ever sees explode—
“This way, this way,” the bird song goes—
They land and reconnect with their shadows.
Some people approach holding flattering mirrors
That warp just a little and scatter
The light that you carry
In ways you can barely detect.
The closer you get, the less they reflect
Your true image, but stretch
A false version of you in a thousand directions
And slowly confuse your self-perception.
The only way to regain your bearings
Is to close your eyes and to reach out your hands.
When that rooster crows
You will remember what you know—
That every loud profession
Is an accidental confession
That the quiet, enduring substance
Of loyalty is absent.
At the break of dawn
The world will see what you have done—
If you can see it too,
Then you still have the power to choose.
Love does not live in the words you use
But in what you choose to do.
When a decision is made,
A new world appears—
Almost as if
The lens through which
You view the world
Is all there is.
If you search online for how to love yourself, you will see a lot about setting healthy boundaries for others in your life. In my experience, self-love comes before the setting of boundaries, and not after. I don't think boundaries are the stuff self-love is composed of, but a natural consequence of it.
When you are in state of viewing yourself compassionately, you come to understand your own complexity, imperfection, and inconsistency with warmth and patience even as you work to improve. You understand that you will never be perfect, because no one is, and that you, like everyone else, are nevertheless lovable. When others then treat you with consistent patterns of disregard, lack of respect, or even hostility, you come to understand that they are acting out of their own wounds. They lack self-love. And because I too once lacked self-love, I understand it and feel true compassion for them.
But when someone treats me poorly now, I know that their treatment of me will affect my ability to love myself if I accept it, and I refuse to accept anyone into my inner life who will compromise the warm self-regard that I have worked so hard to achieve. The door closes pretty firmly. That does not mean I do not have love for those people, and it also does not mean I would not accept them back into my life, in due time, if they show with their behavior and their words that they have changed. But until then, I love myself too much to go down with them.
Self-love is a journey that everyone has to face on their own. It is only through doing so that genuine union with others becomes a possibility.
