COSMIC CHUCKLE

By SASKIA DAVIS © 1980

 

Just look at me,

the great chooser of Life!

What a funny thing I did!

I created me;

Fancied me up in human package

and delivered me

to that most peculiar earth plane

(which, by the way, I created, too.)

 

Now, there was I

And what did I do?

I played a game.

Pretended I had no choice,

no power, no will.

Pretended I was weak and separate

From all the other parts of me.

Pretended I depended

on weird little circumstances

just custom-created

for the game I played.

 

And the funniest thing I did:

 

Well,

  Hee Hee!  Ho Ho!  Hee Hee!

 

I pretended so intensely,

I finally took me seriously.

 

Then, on and on I played,

forgetting who I really was.

“Good ” and “bad” I often judged,

and “right” and “wrong”

and “mine” and “thine.”

 

Sometimes,

I made war against myself.

“There’s not enough for me,” I’d cry,

“so give me what is thine!”

 

Oh, how serious I grew.

It all seemed so very real:

No power, no choice, no will,

just weak and separate.

How exciting I thought it all:

the mystery of wondering

if maybe, just maybe,

even by accident,

I could have

some little desire of mine.

And that great charge

of discouragement

that came over me

as I realized

that by all the little rules,

well, of course,

there was no hope.

Oh Woe!

 

Oh!

And the one great fear I had:

How it delights me, looking back!

It was of giving up that silly game;

for then, I feared

I’d cease to be.

I thought,

 

HEE HEE! HO HO! HEE HEE!

 

I thought there’d be

no more of me.

 

                                                 Saskia Davis