A Symphony in the Shape of Life

or The Story of Us in the Shape of Some Words

Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash

I love poetry and stories as ways of exploring life and mystery because they evoke truth in ways that finely articulated arguments never could. The mind, it turns out, can only take you so far. Because it relies on memories and probabilities to navigate, it is unequipped for the borderlands of soul and the Unknown. If you dare to wander there, you need the guidance of the heart because it will point you toward possibilities too big for the mind to hold—possibilities that must be sensed rather than understood.

This is a poem-story I wrote and is dedicated to the one and only

Holly Kaiser

. It’s an invitation, if you’re looking for one, to see life (and yourself) through a slightly different lens. I hope you enjoy.

---

I awoke in a strange land
and found myself alone

where three questions
ike splinters
needled my mind
in this place far from home

Who am I, really?
Why am I here?
Do I belong?

I've chased my Self all my life,
searched for me-shaped 
cracks and spaces where I fit

But the truth, 
she plays hard to get

I’ve explored the borderlands,
wandered the deep canyons of soul 
sometimes lost, often alone

But nothing I found was ever me
or could ever be me

I am more than any one thing, you see
or any name I could be named
or mask I could wear

I am more, 
so much more
but what?

Sometimes, I think 
I hear a faint whisper on the wind
calling my name 
as if it were a song

Maybe that’s it
and I simply did not see?
Maybe that’s what I might be

A song

A soul song breathed alive by holy wind 
that rattles bones like chimes 
and hums with delicious Love through my skin

A symphony in the shape of life

A boundless song
that plays and then
like a dream half remembered
slips away

A living song 

Can I confess to you, my friends?
I think I have despised my song at times
tried to sing your song or others'
desperate to make them mine

but I was always off-key, 
it wasn’t me
could never be me

I am far more than 
even I can see

I am not who I think I am
or who I think you think I am 
and neither are you

We are the same
Is that really the way?

I forget 
what did the whispering wind say?
Ah, yes:

We are soul songs being sung, 
notes gracefully played 
in an infinite symphony
improvised by the All

The One who lives in and through our music
The All who is the Music
could only ever be the Music 
because that’s 
ALL THERE IS

One song with infinite notes 
clothed in skin
wondrously lost
in the ecstatic dance of THIS

This place
This world 
This life
This moment
where we are played
in perfect time, in perfect ways

With throbbing, thunderous beats 
it births whole worlds 
and shatters time 
to remind us 

That I am yours and
you are mine

We belong 
to each other:
Allies
Family
Sisters 
Brothers

This symphony calls to me, 
oh how it calls to me
surrender, surrender 
it says to me 

The time for blindness is over
It is now time to sing 
and see

I want to Lose my self 
to the symphony that plays as me
and carries us all
on a vast unending swell of infinity

“Sing louder,” the wind says,
“Open your heart and mouth 
and just say Yes”

So I do because
I long to be known
and seen by you

So here I stand,
exposed with open mouth 
and trembling hands

Into me see
You just might find
a piece of yourself
smiling back

We owe it to each other
to share our stories, 
our songs

because this…

THIS is why we have come

So sing your hearts free
give your stories away,
for you
YOU are the Song 
that drips from Divinity’s lips

Infinity in frail disguise, 
Life’s sweetest kiss
wrapped in dust that swirls 
and dances in perfect time

Just look around
We are here
In this cathedral of life

Miraculously here 
but for a time
to be sung
and Known

So Beloved, I leave you with this:
we’re born dreaming 
and life is coming awake

Only illusions have beginnings and ends 
but We stretch forever, un-contained

so in this timeless now 
let us wake up  and 
dare to Sing

the Infinite Song
that is you and
the Song that is Me

---

If you liked this, you might also like a short story I wrote about what happens when a soul decides to incarnate on planet Earth. It’s a bit strange, I’ll admit, but then again so is life on Earth.