The Mad Mystic

They circled him with torches lit,
eyes wild, voices sharp as knives,
“Who are you? What have you done?”
“Speak your truth or we’ll hang you for fun.”

He stood barefoot on parched earth,
As lynchers reveled in their mirth,
Dust rising around his grazed ankles,
The madman smiled in his shackles.

I am Love, I love and I’m loved, he said,
I am love that burns, that shatters and rebuilds,
I am destruction and destroyed,
His voice like thunder behind distant hills.

This is my truth, the only truth that matters,
Not a flinch from the crowd as the silence shatters.

I’ve been torn limb from limb—
Broken spirit with a heart that’s grim,
By grief, by rage, by truth itself,
And yet I rise again, ash-covered self.

I’m loss , but also deeply lost,
I lose to win and be closer to God,
I walk into darkness with tremble,
Because losing keeps me humble.

I’m imperfect like an unruly child,
But in being God’s child I’m also Divine,
I’m only a speck small and invisible,
But the universe is in me – infinite and indivisible.

That, is my truth.
And the only truth you need to know.
As his captors leaned in,
He smiled his way to the gallows.

Not with madness but terrible joy,
Of a man who sees beyond the veil and the ploy,
Noose around his neck, the crowd was numb,
He whispered – I go not to die but to become!