Remorseless Joy

Slipping slowly and gracefully, Long shadows and creeping time,
A cycle draws to a close,
A glorious, glorious time,
An era of great struggles, great achievement and great learning,
A long sunset to a shining day,
And tomorrow you wake up in a different world,
The new, the emerging, the implicate,
An open space, a blank sheet,
The looming gift to write new tunes,
As others gather in musty rooms,
Will you strike out with the edge of your creativity?
As others embrace familiarity,
Will you choose a strange, uncertain path?
And so the wheel turns and turns again,
Gathering pace then slowing down,
Propelled by the remorseless joy of our reinventing souls.

(I recently read the book 'Nature and the Human Soul' by Bill Plotkin - see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nature-Human-Soul-Cultivating-Fragmented/dp/1577315510/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255103054&sr=1-1. It was an inspring and challenging read with many wonderful snippets of poetry scattered through the prose. Bill's premise is that life has many stages and that each stage feels like it is the best stage of life when you are in it! So much so that individuals, groups, societies can cling to a stage far beyond its useful life. He suggests that Western society is trapped in a permanently adolescent stage with little access to the wisdom of later stages of life. This poem mirrors this feeling of transition from one day to another, from one stage of life to another. A great day draws to a close because this is the natural cycle and, in the morning, you start again with a 'blank sheet'. And whilst there is an inevitable sadness associated with endings, there is always the excitement that follows with new beginnings, possibilities to create, to engage the unfamiliar. The last line of the poem highlights that sometimes, even though your mind and your heart might wish to stay in the known and the familiar, the soul can only find joy in the act of creation and it is this that it seeks with patience, persistence and passion.)