Instructions from a Master

This writer self relies on
twin pillars of memory & imagination
which another day —
in the not-self of meditation
are the winged boulders of drowning.
I travel up river back to the source
& the heart of darkness I crave.

Most often, I paddle in the Congo alone
like a prisoner of the body
looking to exist as something else —
& nothing — entirely beyond
anything known. Conundrums,
rubicons & riddles are my training.
Can we gain the whole world

yet let it all go? You told me yes—
all the scaffolding we have acquired:
religions, systems, rituals
simply a homage to our pride &
the child’s helplessness
while we throw actual children on the pyre.
Is it clear how insane we are?

Mind is shuttering now, pictures
intermittent, viscera worried
about exposure, demolition of gods
& layers of concepts counting down.
’You cannot know my world until you are there.’
We must break down to be shown.
The ‘I’ that started the quest is going.

Copyright Simon Heathcote