It occurs to me now <br />That all that remains unseen, <br />Unheard, unfelt, unknown to us <br />Does not do so for its elusiveness - <br />But for the lost opportunity <br />Of unwillingness and inability. <br /> <br />The images that exist in darkness, <br />The songs that fly by on wings of silence, <br />The weight of transparent, paper thin <br />Contact lenses sitting, not floating, on corneas <br />Are never nonexistent, <br />But are often… overlooked. <br /> <br />The fleeting colors of so called reality, <br />The crash and bang of everyday, <br />And the heaviness of the clothes we wear <br />To cover up our own nakedness <br />Steal our attention – <br />And close our eyes and ears and hearts <br />To the everything-else we dare not know. <br /> <br />We are, it seems <br />Nearly always, half asleep <br />In our wakefulness. <br /> <br />Until - unless - we stumble into <br />That pool of forgotten clarity <br />And drown ourselves there <br />(in a half inch of rain water, even) <br />Until the lungs of numbness fill <br />And foolishness dies <br />So that we may, finally – open, wide, <br />Long neglected ears and hearts and eyes <br /> <br />And, by virtue of overwhelming awareness <br />Become unwilling and unable to deny <br />How we were truly meant <br />To live our lives.<br /><br />Christine Austin Cole<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/life-after-drowning/
