Taken In

What powerful minds
Can wrap themselves around
Pails in comparison
To the sea of mysteries
Taken in
By an open heart
Keys to a door unlocked
Incite weighting
A mountain of presents
Countless
Un-rapt
By lesser mines
Fuels goaled
Lead buy ail chemistry
Living on bread crumbs
Sour grapes
And ancient plumbs
Which might
Make rite
Miss taking
For old prunes
Spurring nature’s calling
Turning awe
Into mere droppings
What more fertilize see
Beyond star dust
Big bangs
And clever hides
Sphering only
That wee are food again
For the gods
Flailing to clutch
Their pursed ellipse
Unquipped beyond their gears
And graveyard shifts
From wents the flowers come and go
And to the see returning
From a where
The eternal calling
With endless drops
Echoes beyond mine
Let it go
And be
Taken in
By an open heart

Not surprisingly, the title of this poem, “Taken In,” is a pun.  “Taken in” can mean being fooled or conned, indicating gullibility; or, it can mean invited in or accepted into.  An open heart is vastly larger than even an open mind.  The heart is the only organ of perception that can take in the whole of life.  Even the most powerful minds are constrained by the mind’s own faculty of dividing and analyzing; and while the mind can synthesize, it is limited by the parts available to it, unable to access the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.  The mountains of presents that life offers stretch far beyond our minds reach.  Only by opening our hearts can we be taken in by the whole of life and take our rightful place and role.  I see the heart as naturally open, our default condition.  Nevertheless, through conditioning of hurt, fear, and uncertainty, we may learn to close our hearts.  I particularly like the image of “keys to a door unlocked.”  The fact that the door is open and unlocked must sit with the intrigue of the door having a lock and you possessing a key, not to open the door which is already open, but to lock it.  This “incites weighting,” trying to lock up parts of life for our own.  Unfortunately, however much we are able to lock up for our own, we will end up with less than if we kept the door of the heart open.  Clever minds may on occasion get the upper hand on those with open hearts, but cleverness is no substitute for wisdom.  Cleverness adeptly grasps and manipulates for its own purposes.  Wisdom lets go, and is taken in by a high power, better aligning oneself with higher purposes.  May you be taken in…