The 60-Second Sabbath

Failure

Take risks.

Failure is,
at the very least,
a place you're not in now.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

The Museum

We visit a museum--
an enormous, crammed collection
of paintings, furniture and glassware.

There are employees here,
but they display the same restfulness
as the items exhibited in the glass cases,
as the furniture, unused, guarded by satin ropes.

It's as if the entire place--
contents and people--
is off-limits to the sudden,
to noise in general,
to any intrusion from the last three decades.

I want to work here--
no, I want to live here.

Insulation, isolation, quietude.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

The Doors of the World

The doors of the world--
the ones between cultures,
between peoples,
between neighbors...
who can open these? 

Not the arrogant.
Not those who enter uninvited.
Not those with hands wet and slick with blood.

To open the doors of the world,
one first knocks,
then listens,
then serves,
binds wounds,
cradles the crying child,
gives beyond distinction.

And then, and then...
the doors of the world?

There are none.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved. 

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

 

You, Artist

Only madness
takes in hand
palette and brush,
splashing senseless colors
across the singular canvas
of your life.
Insane abandon
creates the masterpiece.

You, artist:
this is your calling.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

The Steady

There are ways
to be renewed
by the ancient:
stand silent and mindful
    in a rank of redwood minarets,
    beneath a sequined Montana night,
    at the apex of a Mayan pyramid,
    on the unsteady edge of an ocean's immensity,
    in the life of a primal saint.

Slowly,
slowly,
seeps in
the steady.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Wisdom

Solomon, Buddha, Muhammad, Christ--
we look to you for sound advice.
And what recommendation are you quick to give?
"From each heart alone, one learns to live."

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Ten-Thousand Poems

Today, around the globe,
ten-thousand poems shall be written,
one, perhaps, by me. 

Each begins with an ache,
likely echoing another's ache--
answering, enflaming, soothing...

But most
(this one?)
may never be sent beyond these few, ruled lines,
never find life beyond this page,
lost to all but God.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Sometimes...

Sometimes you're the Pac-Man.

Sometimes you're the little, yellow dot.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

 

Love's Captive

I want
to be vanquished
by love.

I want love
to win.

Love,
take me captive.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

 

March 14, 2012

I stand at the sink.
In the sink are a coffee cup,
a cereal bowl,
and a spoon.
At this moment,
the energy it will take
to move these three items
from the sink to the dishwasher
seems overwhelming.
I can not do it.

This is depression.

For me, it lasts 72 hours.
For you, maybe months--
years.

I have respect for you--
for the phenomenal challenge
you face each day.
It's not a matter of,
"getting over it."
It runs so much deeper:
it's lacking the energy,
the motivation,
to do the most basic of tasks:
brush your teeth,
shower,
eat--
all too much,
meaningless,
empty.

Just saying,
"I am depressed,"
was effort enough...

...but helped me turn a corner.

Text and image © 2012 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.