I have been pondering, for some long time now, how to go about actively forgiving my bipolar ex boyfriend who died over seven years ago.
Last week while touring the midwest I had a series of three dreams which I think relate to this. Here's the poem I wrote about it when I got home.
Enemies
I
Walking down the street in the spirit-place, I, living, spoke to the dead one.
There was complete understanding; no memory of the earthly past, nor any grievance, as though this was our natural state and all that had gone before were just so many stories.
At the end, when I knew I had to go, I twined my fingers round his neck and asked, �Are you going to be all right now?� and he answered, hopefully,
�I have my moments.�
II
Being weary of the battle, I dreamed I asked forgiveness of my enemy.
I discovered all his guests at the banquet eating his cake. It was blue, bright blue. It was Krishna blue
and, being out of favor, I had none.
But though I ached with the injustice of his wrongs
I took a golden pen and sought to write, I am sorry; please forgive me.
And then I would go quietly, as though the point were not to get cake, but only to make a way for peace.
III
I got into a fight in the cereal aisle.
Words led to hitting and I killed him in anger and without regret.
The grocery store turned into a fairgrounds as I ran a long way through a crowd to escape under a fence where my bike was waiting, looking almost like my bike and ready to help me flee up the winding streets with no thought but to remain anonymous and unaccountable.
IV
So slowly we emerge from dreams to our familiar, warsome states.
I have been asking the way to forgiveness, though the war crimes were real and I have carried my anger like a standard of petrified wood.
But since there is no more battle, only the spectre of a burning hill, I have come to the conclusion that poisoning oneself is no way to rout an enemy.
Three dreams were given to me in one week to point the different paths I might take.
In the first, there was perfect understanding. In the second, conciliation with a price. In the third, action without compassion.
At this crossroads a host of blackbirds rises from the trees and blankets the sky shouting in joyful chorus for the coming of the Autumn gods and the passage of all things.
