A Poem For When You Don’t Want to Keep on Keeping On

It seems important to
respect sadness as one way
to acknowledge
the passing of time,
the reality that everything is constantly changing,
and not try to gloss it over with more silly slogans
like, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

In the light of warm evening air
and a lonely broken heart, these sayings pass on by
like distant ships going to other places,
transporting cargo, whatever.

Yes we “need” all kinds of coming and going to make the world
“function” but oh
once in awhile we need to stop and cry too.

Oh every now and then life doesn’t go on and we
don’t have to “keep on keeping on” or let time heal all wounds.
In our hearts we can pause and breathe
and love
and know,
without concern with the keeping on
or the keeping at all.

For we are sad that there is no keeping anything.
It’s okay to stop.
It’s okay to breathe butterflies and sing
angelic songs to the turquoise streaks in the sky when the sun sets over the Pacific.
It’s okay to leap for joy at the liberation of another
and the fruition of long labored plans.

If you always keep on keeping on,
there’s a fear of death in every breath, every motion, every dance step,
while art can only come
dance can only come
music and love can only come when death is involved,
included,
welcomed to sit ’round the table with the rest of us
and keeping on is for the fearful,
for things that need to keep on will keep on,
on their own,
and you will be part of their dance,
but you won’t be choreographing every step
trying to out dance death.

Death likes to dance too, in fact.
Death is your invisible dance partner,
ever dancing you into your destiny, your destined moves and songs,
your destined love and tears.

You don’t have to keep on or keep up or keep anything.
You’re being kept
in a Divine sandwich,
you will always be held.

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