Rite of Passage

April 25, 2017 by Usha Pisharody 3 Comments

This Ceremony precludes

Intent, consequence,

Sometimes, even reason.

It is done, so it is done.

 

Growing up.

That moment you’re told

No one would hold your hand.

If you fall, you pick yourself up.

Dust your knee, look not for succor

To treat the first abrasion

On your heart.

 

The unwritten training manuals of life

Are etched far more permanently

In the minds of those under whose

Tutelage you might find yourself.

 

When you fall in love.

Play that straight, passionate,

With all the heart you have.

And then learn it’s tough

To have a heart at all.

Far better off without one

But no one ever told you that.

Instead, the stories of your childhood

The music of your adolescence

The sorority sessions,

The locker room lessons…

They merely ratified, certified maybe,

But constantly reiterated the

Legendary magic of Love.

You sigh, perhaps. In resonance?

I understand. I’m precisely where you are.

 

That time when you knew

You’d reached a point of no return

Yet look backward, into the pools

Of time, peering past the

Blackness, to pick out something

That shines through.

At times a clear and lucid image flashes.

At times it’s merely a tremor of trauma

All foggy, but the chill creeps all the way to

Now.

Do you stop looking back?

Them manuals do tell you, Don’t.

As with the child, that your heart finally is,

(though you think it old and broken beyond reason)

You do precisely that which you aren’t to do.

 

Then wonder at that threshold

Where you stand. Dying to go back,

For there is a comfort in the pain, the joy

That once was.

 

And nothing but terror in the path ahead.

 

Till that voice inside takes charge

Helped by that voice outside…

The one that owns the hand

Stretched out to shake yours.

Or maybe, just intertwine your fingers together…

 

And tug you, and your heart, onward.

 

The unknown trail, you’d take

Or the path you’d make.

 

Looking forward

To the you, you’ll be.

(And God Bless! ❤ You shall get to you 🙂 )

 

25 April, 2017

Day#25 of #NaPoWriMo 2017, National Poetry Writing Month 2017