The Power of Philosophy and Freedom.
Today I'm going to share with you a prose poem of mine called Anne Sexton and Ralph Waldo Emerson Ride a Donkey into Heaven.
Before I begin,
Take some time to settle in.
This poem is a bit long and I'll read it slowly so you can reflect upon it as you listen.
There will be an open-ended writing prompt at the end.
Anne Sexton and Ralph Waldo Emerson Ride a Donkey into Heaven.
Flee,
Flee,
She said to me at three in the morning.
Come from your life of worry and wife and ride with us into heaven.
And so I floated down from my bedroom window onto the donkey below and we made our way through the town.
Emerson held the reins in front.
It had been previously arranged,
Anne said.
We made him the leader so we wouldn't have to feel his member behind us.
I was in the middle and Anne held me like the mother of Mary she was named to be and I felt like a child.
You are no more a child than Christ was a man,
Anne said,
Tapping me on the head.
And then they began to argue.
The ancestor of every action is a thought,
Said Emerson.
And so when she thinks of herself as a child she becomes one.
You men,
Cried Anne.
I wrote the most beautiful poems about your problems for years before I died and all you remember is my suicide.
Action is greater than thought intones Emerson and wags his finger again as if the finger were greater than the mouth and by this action truth can come out.
Anne sighs.
I feel her hands on my waist.
They move down to my thighs.
She pats me like a puppy or a loaf of bread.
I could interpret her actions for centuries and still never know the contents of her head unless I ask her.
This is the strength of a woman,
I think,
As the gates to the place of the dead open before us.
There is no chorus,
No harp.
Only Picasso holding his face in his hand saying,
Everything you can imagine is real.
Exactly my good man,
Says Emerson.
That's exactly what I've been trying to explain to these ladies.
The real deal.
And after much backslapping and handshaking the men walk away taking their fingers and members and imagine thoughts with them into the gates of heaven.
Anne and I hesitate.
There is a clock here and we notice we are not even late.
There is time,
She says to me,
And I agree unwinding the arms of the clock so that we are more than early.
The night is young girly,
She grins.
Let's go have some fun.
And we walk hand in hand from the entrance of heaven,
Blow kisses to the donkey as we let him free and begin after all these years to be who we are meant to be.
Who are you meant to be?
I want you to write about this in a journal entry or a poem or a story or an essay or paint it out or create a song or sculpt something.
Take as long as you like.
Simply as the poem says blow kisses to the donkey as we let him free and begin.
