the abyss

my mind creates an abyss

then my heart leaps up to cross it.

my heart opens up its' backpack,

stuffs in a namaste,

three aums, and a handstand,

as well as last night's mashed potatoes...

because hearts know that to cross a mental abyss

is hungry business...

and may take a while.

my mind creates an abyss

then my heart leaps up to cross it--

opening frantically,

hopefully the pages of the dhammapada,

the bhagavadgita,

and a packet of dark chocolate all at once.

opening the feet far apart

as hanuman did when he took his great leap of love,

physically trying to bridge that horrible gap.

and i,

opening the chest in my deepest back-bend,

dust out the closet of my heart

and go deeper.

and deeper.

my mind creates an abyss

then my heart leaps up to cross it...

sometimes with the enthusiasm of a two year old jumping the space of the playground to his mothers' arms....

and sometimes, when my heart is weary,

a prayer doesn't move her.

and the handstand which she kept in her back pocket seems a dirty trick,

so she moves more hesitantly,

and to her, the slow mantra of love becomes an awkward stutter.

my mind,

which lives a lot in its' kitchen laboratory

cooking up some self-centered story of survival and preservation,

pours his stories into jars,

and bottles the poison of memory.

but my heart skips through after school,

drinks down the poison in a gulp, pronouncing it "lovely!"

and then takes several jars of stories down for a snack.

like this my heart cannot be cluttered,

for she holds hands with the Divine and skips through winter puddles.

she cannot be defiled,

for the sweet breath of heaven-on-earth breezes through the windows

that she has most-intentionally left open.

heart cannot be daunted...

for the abyss that mind has created before her is but a hop-skip-and jump into the arms of god.

my mind creates an abyss,

and my heart,

perceiving that chasm,

plucks a lotus to stick between her teeth,

plants a prayer on her sleeve, and hops on over,

beginning with:

"beloved, we are one.

may you be happy.

may you be peaceful.

may you feel love,"

my mind creates an abyss,

and my heart intones:
"come friend...let us string a rope from here to there,

and swing ourselves over into the garden of eden!"