thelongandthestroke

“How strange,
How queer it be to me
To think of the before
Of days, of years,
Which I believed I could do with as I pleased

To be me in certain form for the longest time
Then one day
rearranged ~
Lachesis at work with pruning shears
Had been mapping all my fears ~

The innocent bliss, before the break
Where everything I knew felt known
and cradled me in comforts arms
Until the point where I was shown ~
A learning that the things I knew
Were not so many
But really few

The only way ~ I’ve come to know
Is not to know, but fall in blind
This vital ruse was set just so ~
To keep me supple in the wake
Else Mind might have sent a supportive stake

And so ~

They bare bone cracked my armor hard
Left me sugared but brittle in the yard ~
“You must come home
Your home with wings ~
We’ll pave the way with illumined things”

In shining retrospect I note ~
I’d even watched a Lotus birthed
Few Moons before I got rewrote
I’d held her Mother up between my legs
No time for night time yawn
here came a flower in human form

For provisions they’d said ~
“Just toil your land, prepare the field”
A gift impression to sweet Sawol ~
The most scant silhouette of the forest form
snapping even my usual subversive norm

Self-made sinew shoots did spread
Reaching limbs wriggled deep
All lithe and long
clung to soils in clasp so strong ~
next crawling down to Central Sun
enroute to say hellio to Middle One
They met and held each other close
The fire of hearth to threads of Earth

Firebed had sat in patient rest
of spiral shape
Timed to spark
At the ignite of Lightnings lark
She’d known the rage that was to come
understood it would siphon the dross and scum
‘Till all I’d hear was heartbeat drum

So caught I was ~
With no way back
Stand still I had
And found I was

Ecstatic state comes first ~
A tiny glimpse to spark a thirst
Then awareness dawn of just how much need be let go ~
As mountain climbers well do know
The peak seems close
But’s just a way to draw our hope
Too much straight off would keep man remote ~

Wildfire brought charge to every room
And in its deftly dwindle
left idle heap of feathered ash
Equipping me with sweeping broom
To support the cleansing of Dear Womb

As cracks into my ground appeared
Then so did stored dismissals start to rear
Shadowy shows
Came frothing to my shore
Unravelling my individual lore

Nights too they took a different form ~
Knit tight with voices hushed
and visions truth
Layers peeled in Darknesses chambered hold
as I yielded to the call to sleuth

Clues once hid in cups of golden Day
Come revealed in Nox_
Bright metaphor dreams that show the way
And as they do I void the blocks

Recast in coded crescent Moon
My foundling form rides left side waves
And to the open sea it braves

Body bare branched starts to see
Sheet music fall in floating leaves
And images of balanced Garden Eaves
Projecting shapes that I must trace
Of flowing streams
Of realised dreams
From silk spun lace
Of paradise place

Flighty faeries and nifty nymphs
Sing melodies of pure delight
And swiftly settle things to right.

When the mission first was posed
I’d replied with haste, why sure_ I’ll go
So eager was I to depart
I left the cradles of the dark
Just shy of one whole Moonly arc
With liberation light stowed safe
In glowing waves
For later days

Now Conductor flails his arms
And tunes me in to the Great out-here
As I stretch out
Both down
and up
Out-here becomes in-here abuzz

Seeds surface now
And as they do
My palms and face fall low in bow
I’m naked now and in the flow
Left with only a mantle of love’s good glow

Dove wing lungs flap fast in flux
with passions of the chorus realm
And cavernous sounds
as chimes ring clear_
the tune of the open heart in here

Like body in part
But mostly chest
A space where spirit roams
and light can dart.
Now I paint with pigment pure
In mercurial state of love and awe


Fast in flow
But at times more slow
For such is lore
That this release,
So know the geese~
be tailored to full span of flight ~

So ~ to old life in decease
And also Ode to new
I offer these words as pledge of now ~
To the Golden strait
That’s laid in wait.

Joanna Long
January 2021
Taiwan
”