Call it youthful naivete, call it delusion, call it 37 years of egomaniacal indigestion (fuck if I know), but I’ve always had a sense that I was meant to do something. I’ve been searching for that something. So much so that I’ve begun to think that i am little more than the name given to the search. And, by “searching” and by “something” I don’t mean the sandals, beads, and linen pants search for something. I mean the deep, existential, big something; purpose, calling, all those grand overarching terms that I can use with earnest only one paper, but would roll my eyes at if I had to speak them aloud.
Its a feeling that has always haunted me. I know that I was meant to make things. I know that is true. But I also know that it is only partially true. It is true, but it is so much more. It is true in the way that one can truthfully say that Keith Richards is a guitar player. And yet, such a truth falls short of the full truth that is ‘Keef’. I’m agnostic about most things, but if there is a god, it might very well be Keith Richards…blessed be he…just saying.
Recently someone told me that I was a “lighthouse”; they said that’s how they see me and my work. And, in an instant everything became clear. Everything made sense. That is what I am, that is what I’m here to do. I keep a light lit to help guard as many as I can against the dangers of the dark.
Inspired by the thought I wrote the poem below:
Comfortable above a black ocean of disconsolate and disconcerting depth
I am radiant amongst the rocks made jagged by the things that tear us in two
I bid you traveling mercies dear one
Be ye calmed and covered by the flame I bear
The flame that burns only to bring you home…
Pingback: love will tear us apart... - Duane Toops