nunc dimittis

I was randomly picking through my works when I ran across this gem...what is remarkable about it is not the raw sense of world-weariness it carries.

What is remarkable is that it was written eight years ago. In the time since then I have loved many remarkable women, had the pleasure of my daughter living with me for a while, married a beautiful and emotioanlly supportive (for a time) woman and moved from Venice to Chatsworth to Grandada Hills to Manassas to San Mateo to Salinas to Diamondhead to Morgantown, put out eight books, won several awards, rediscovered an old friend from high school whom I thought was dead, made dozens of friends, had my best years (financially) I have yet had in this life and found some remarkable truths along the path, as well as a better sense of my path.

I've written, grown and saved a few lives. I've driven a sportscar down Topanga Canyon at night, as swiftly as I could, daring the fates to take me. I have stood in the high desert and felt the wind draw the very sweat from my pores while speaking to a small lizard. I have carried a woman from her death to her life. I've given up nearly everyone and everything I ever held dear to higher purposes, or their own foolishness. I've said yes when I should have said no, said no when I should have said yes and given of myself in true charity, not wanting anything inr eturn (although an occasional acknowledgement heals the burns).

True, these are eight years I will not get back, no matter how I regret some decisions...but life is made up of lost time, and some times are better lost than lingered over.

Anyway, here's the piece in question:

Nunc Dimittis

I have seen all
I need to see.
Pull the sheet back over my face.
There is nothing
that remains here.
Each tear-stain falls into place
like jigsaw holograms
taking with them a focus
but not the whole picture.
Fictions for truths.
Platitudes exchanged for honest inquiry.
Rawhide hearts riding mythic beasts
into the sunset in the final reel
when all the audience can feel
is what the dark director wants them to.
And even the critics are confounded,
for they are part of the performance art
of lives unravelled in a bolero.
a tango. a tarantella
with only two legs.
dancing to forget.
Those who depart,
not in peace,
but to find it.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

I really like the wordplay of the line "lives unraveled in a bolero" which references Ravel's "Bolero" - a piece of music often associated with sex, not lovemaking, but sex.

It's about letting go, for your own sake and for the sake of others, but mostly for your own sake when you know others are making bad decisions, but you have to let them. It's about the depression of watching people get stupid, and feeling powerless to save, not the world, but even a small corner of it.

And, in the stream of things, I am reassured that I will ascend and transcend this sorrow, as I ascended and transcended the sorrow eight years ago (and hopefully in better company).

He who stands and fights with heart knows then he has played his part.