Saturday, May 14, 2011

House on Fire


House on Fire

Your house
   is on fire.

Quick—
   what will you take
with you
into that new
life,
the one
you hadn’t planned?

The one without
the layers
of meaning
and belief,
carelessly constructed yet
protected
with such
blind
tenacity?

Choose now—
   will you keep
your relationships
as you’ve known them?

Your ways of being
   in the world?

Will you crawl out
  of the house
   at last,
gasping for clean air,
having risked it all
for one momento
of the person
you used to be?

Arrogant presumption,
this pretense of choosing.

As if the Soul, 
   having sought
  its ego-erasing crucible
would now empower
your illusions
of control.

Why keep running
back
into the wreckage?

Better to surrender
wholeheartedly.

Let the flames
take it all—even
your blueprint
for life after immolation.

Trust in the miracle
beyond your designing:

The post-surrender peace
that comes
from somehow knowing
amidst the ashes
you’ll find the treasure
that was always hiding
beneath your dross,
waiting for one more fire
to set it free. 

        ©2011, Kimberly V. Schneider
                     from her forthcoming audiobook,
                    
Terrible Beauty: Poems and Reflections
                     for Precarious Times

Catch Up

January in MO





















February(on the Homestead)





















March (Rocking Out with Jai Uttal)
















April (A Boy & His (pink, sparkle-y) Horse)





















May (On the Big Kid Swing!)