Further Reflections on “Rilke: Poetry and Alchemy
Len Cruz
If I Ain’t Jungian
(Adapted by Len Cruz with permission from If I Ain’t African by Glenis Redmond. Her poem is printed below.)
If I ain’t Jungian
someone tell my soul
to stop sounding an ancient meditation bell.
If I ain’t Jungian
someone tell that woman in me
to stop whispering incantations in my ear.
If I ain’t Jungian
someone tell my eyes
to stop looking into the deep
from whence I emerged
Someone speak to my ordered way
of life and tell it to
quit welcoming disruptions.
If I ain’t Jungian
How come I know the way home
to Ithaca’s unreachable shores?
Feel it in my loins.
If I ain’t Jungian
how come my spirit
calls from deep unto deep.
How come every time I find myself breaking apart
I free fall into the next moment.
I I ain’t Jungian
how come I know things I’m not supposed to know
about ancient cultures and the stories
rooted in my deepest parts.
If I ain’t Jungian
someone tell the gods
to stop calling on me,
Apollo, Belenos, Ra,
Selene, Yemaya, Máni!
Tell me why I get dizzy
every time I
see the sun and moon together in the sky.
If I ain’t Jungian
how come I detect spiritus mundi
everywhere I go:
Hear it in my heartbeat
hear it high
hear it low.
If I ain’t Jungian
someone tell my soul
to suspend its ceaseless arising.
Someone tell their gods
to call another name.
Someone take this bell
out of my depths.
Someone give my intuition
a flatter world to apprehend.
If I ain’t Jungian
someone tell my hands
to speak to my arms
to speak to my shoulders
to press a message on my Orphean breast
to compose a song of life
to gently hum that melody in my ear.
If I ain’t Jungian
If I ain’t Jungian
If I ain’t Jungian
PLEASE
Tell my eyes
‘cause if I ain’t Jungian
I ain’t waking, and,
God knows,
I ain’t AWAKE.
