Graveyard gates

 Graveyard gates                                                                                               

I have come not to teach, said my Lord.

Liberation, apparently, not something you learn how to do. 

With this lifetime of accumulated knowledge,

it’s difficult to become a vessel now with a perfectly hollow ring.

There’s an old joke about a drunk

stumbling into an open grave.

I’ve forgotten the punch line.  I’ve dug my own grave;

settled into the bottom, studying the sky.

I can dig no deeper nor climb back to the surface.

I thought the virtue of patience

referred to the length of the journey.

Now I see it only begins

when the path veers from the highway

and enters through the graveyard gates.

O child of God, how stubbornly you cling

to the only thing you know.