Four to One
I am like the ever almost unrequited lover, not
unlike a loitering angel pacing, poised to trouble water,
or some desperate orphan-spinster,
like the dead horse-dealer's daughter, drowning,
garments dripping, gripping tightly, saying to the doctor,
I demand by force of will you rescue me.
You would like us stoic, friendly, static. Nothing doing;
I am sorry, I will make you earn your keep, will make you--
sorry--surf the swells and suffer storms with me. Each day
you may want to say well met and be let off to get your medal,
Yet I will get you wet if I must weep an endless ocean
in the desert. Dowsing, deep to hidden deep, I mean to muddle through
and muss you if I have to make a puddle in a dustbowl.
I must finally plumb the fathoms of your feelings and anoint
your clean, still-water surface with my muddy-fingered mess
and smear your eyes with miracles of sentimental grime
till you confess I wasn't in the maelstrom by myself,
but you were there and felt it all the time.Jennifer Merri Parker
Out of the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram, Mary R. Bast, Ph.D.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised: October 19, 2010