Uncut wood

Uncut  wood                                                                                   

Be as humble, Lao Tzu advised, as uncut wood. 

Too late for most.  We’ve already carved ourselves up –

rasped and whittled, painted and pasted over

to make our shape and image

acceptable to the world –

lovable, respectable . . . exceptional!

O!  The pain involved now in the slicing through,

the paring down below the acquired ornamentation,

every cut by our blade, a further disfigurement;

never to reclaim the purity and authenticity

of the original grain.  Weather me, Lord! 

Over the aeons, down to the essence –

by the elements – as I cede and acquiesce,

mourn and pray for humility –

not the original, guileless condition –

but the humility of helplessness and futility,

the inability, in this lifetime, to recover

an innocence so irretrievably lost.

O child of God, return to your original state

by the grace and dharma of the Beloved.