A Different Kind of Clever

Don’t be too clever, Alan.
Use your mind,
but not to control the show.

Your cleverness keeps itself
from what it wants,
from being fully alive.

There is another kind of cleverness.
It arrives in five steps.

Trust

Trust stays on the scene, regardless.
It is the regardless
That turns it inside out.

Trust and watch how
clever thoughts become objects
in the no-need-to-be clever space.

Openness

As trust dances with the regardless,
Openness sits by the side and watches.

Like a bucket,
collecting rain water.

The bucket fills with curiosity.
The bucket expands
When you don’t react.

The bucket overflows
and there is love.

Love

Love is The Extra Real.

I tell you, Alan,
When I am you looking at me,
There is nothing left of the clever.

Nothing to gain,
nothing to protect,
Nothing to change.

When I am you looking at me,
clever words like me and you, and I and we,
Are all meaningless. All so precious.

Gratitude

Not that clever gratitude
Which says thank you, when
it really means please.

This other thank you reflects on how
The whole thing was a conspiracy
that brought you to me, and me to you.

The pushing, the pulling,
the distractions, avoidance,
the painful reactions,

All tenderized my borders.
...and now I am you looking at me.

Wonder

Mystery dances when history plays the music.
Memories sing beautifully
In the dancehall of not-knowing.

When memories stop feeding knowledge,
They begin to feed awe,
Then nothing is left but to shout: Ahhh!

You see yourself as a stranger.
You open your eyes to yourself.
You say hi.

Beauty gives without condition.
Wonder receives it without condition.

Alan, I will tell you this.
Wonder is yours, where you are,
When you drop the cleverness.

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