“Where I Stand Today” by Niels Kunze

Where I Stand Today:

After a lifetime of untangling,
I stand in the vastness of freedom’s dire threat:
That self-determination will bend time’s narrow path
to open fields… brand new sunshine… and a perfectly blank canvas.
I stand barefoot, rooted,
and emotionally naked… staring into the dark abyss
of all possibility– unmeasured… unfathomed.
I stand in a fearlessness once deemed impossible;
I stand on principle and my own self-defined integrity,
Wrapped in universal lore.

I stand, chiefly, among fierce women…
For whoever would go forth into the bottomless unknown
but the Divine Feminine’s irrationally steadfast love?
She probes the darkness with intuition
and other vague motherly stirrings,
Reaching deep within unordered possibilities…
To bring a new child into our shared world.
She hands to me the strange artifacts of her creativity,
Imploring softly with her eyes
that I should bring structure and meaning
to the seedlings of this pristine world.

We stand together, Masculine and Feminine,
Her upfront, reaching within the untrammeled field,
And I behind… guarding, protecting… from our collective indiscretions–
Monsters from the past, paper tigers, feeding the flames
of this unplanned passion.
They cannot harm us Now, where we stand… Here
in the sureness of our choices going forward…
We will have this New World,
And it will stand on love and poetry
as the dirt between our toes.

Niels Kunze

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