A Long Way (Transformative Abrogation) Poem by Smoky Hoss

'The closer you get to the light, the closer you also get to the dark.' - Parker Palmer

I'd like to blame you...but
I cannot.
After years of research,
putting it all under a microscope of retrospection,
in the light,
in the dark, even
in the twilight of anything left at all,
I've discovered,
the sun and the moon,
science and religion,
creation and evolution, these all,
working together
procuring the unavoidable inculpation:
It is my own fault.
No one else can be indicted
for my crimes of life.
Oh to be sure, there are many implications,
even collusions of hurting hearts, but
when faced with the reality of
tenebrific transgressions,
I find blame nowhere beyond my own borders.
And yet, I have also observed
the valediction of shame and guilt
in quietude.
Silence is a peculiar balm of revelation,
for words cannot speak
so much truth into tranquility.
Very slowly I have learned,
to stop and listen to the peace of possibility,
to ponder the soft dream of reconciliation,
of passing from death to resurrection.
In the calm flow of relinquishment
lies the exoneration of the heart;
Only after all lies die
does love live.
There is no other way.
- I've heard it said: 'There's light at the end of the tunnel',
but from where we now seek
there is much darkness also.
Perhaps, for the time being,
the light resides within the dark, out of necessity.
My soul flows like twinkling tears, alighting toward both...
I must follow... trustingly.
No one knows the sunrise without knowing the night.
Even then (even now)
it's such a long, long
way home -