My Life Is a Poem, an Allegory

Front of Feather

The urban shaman, now living ignorantly in the country, has to ask (on Twitter), “What kind of bird does this feather belong to?” I post a picture and a description. The feather is black, but not deeply so, and has no blue. Maybe is a bit brownish.  

Back of Feather

Responses come. I am told different birds. I am asking the bird’s type, instead of sinking into the lesson it has offered me. I know the lesson but do not live in it. 

Instead, someone tweets me the URL of a science site that would take me an hour to decipher, because I am not good at understanding the site’s approach. I plan to explore it later. And I feel loved by the sender; that much I do well. Which I applaud, because often I reject love. And I should applaud, because I tend only to note my spiritual fall-downs, not my spiritual staying steady. 

I’m tweeted that I should raise feather to the sun because blue might appear. It doesn’t, and I am still ignoring the lesson by checking for hidden blues.   

My life is a poem, an allegory. I learn that the big black feather I found may be crow, illegal to own. Guess I’ll toss it back, into the green, then expect the bigger gift from the Tree of Life.  

. . . I gave the feather back to the Tree of Life, but kept Crow’s lesson to me: Grab the moment instead of the memento (momento); grab the now’s gorgeous detailed pleasures and connectivity, because they will outweigh any poems, books, feathers, or memories that result. 

But still I write this story to you, and trust that I am not incorrigible. My life is a poem, an allegory thrust upon me, a mischief by benevolent Chaos Gods, a bardic alchemy, a myth I try to decipher and try to live fully. I hope and know I am God’s beloved recalcitrant brat. 

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Bardic alchemy is a term from another of my poems, as well as the title of my spoken word album. More on both here. However, I am using the term a bit differently here.