Author: John Knetemann

A separate being with separate thoughts

Borders and walls divide me without knowing

But someday will come when that will not be

I will be like sugar dissolving into tea

No difference between me and what surrounds

Only me surrounded by even more of me

And then as tea I may think to myself:

“I forget what it is like to be sugar”

Evaporating ourselves again into a separate cube

And then strangely, as sugar, I will think again

“I forget what it is like to be tea”

Focusing on the moments that come and giving my response

My enemy stirs within me and makes his strikes

My hero shields me and guides me through the day

And he gets wounded from this unseen onslaught

I rest my head when night comes and my enemy escapes

I wake in the morning and the cycle repeats itself

My enemy today was my hero yesterday

A new hero comes to show me the way

Thus it goes on and on until the long sleep

The never ending struggle of a man’s growth

I win some and I lose some

But I want to win them all

The moment is the hero

The moment is me

The past is the enemy

The past was me

I give my thanks to my hero for today

I give my thanks to my enemy for yesterday

For today is not possible without yesterday

But today is not possible with yesterday either

I fell in love with other people in my early years,

Not getting the love I wanted brought me to tears.

We all want people to love us for our faults,

Deep down we know that is part of the waltz.

But I needed to learn to love them for their cracks,

Or else I would continually feel chopped up by their axe.

Every person has strange manners to other eyes,

Our uniqueness eventually comes with no surprise.

After seeing more about how to tango with her,

New lessons came from the wind’s whisper.

Looking in a mirror and giving to myself what I expected,

Love found a new center with force to be directed.

A strange conversation with judges, lawyers, and the media,

Trying to untangle meaning within without a good encyclopaedia.

Acquiring this love opened a door that I didn’t expect,

A door to the next dance I needed to detect.

Love for another and love for oneself are one type of task,

Love of life and reality was the next one to unmask.

Once again, I needed to love all of life’s supposed imperfections,

Realizing that love eats its own tail with never ending corrections.

It is a long road that is full of nonsensical paradoxes,

Destroying and then recreating all the mental boxes.

Learning to let go of hate but still loving hate,

Would life be life without hate on the plate?

To love tears, to love rage, and to love despair,

To love all the real things, good or bad, in the air.

Isn’t everything on earth and in the stars pretty great?

After all, there is no other reality in which we can relate.

What does it actually mean to truly and fully love life?

Perhaps having the most mysterious, miraculous, and moody wife.