Loving Joseph Campbell

by Bruce Weigl

The difference between what you want
and what you’re allowed to have
is unspeakable. You know,
the things you only rarely tell
yourself, about desires only
those who let the world have
themselves can know, often risking
everything, that you may be
delivered to an abyss
of sorts where how for some there is
no saying no, to invitations
of even the darkest kind, or else
no resurrection, as if we had
another life. We only have
this one, inside of which we want
some things we’re not allowed to have,
that human flaw our way of thinking
is shaped around, sheer beauty of
what is, and what can never be.
I’m satisfied just the same.
A second lasts a million years
when you’re inside the bliss that you
were meant to be inside to live
a life of joyful purpose and
repose, beside the spirits who
are there because they have to be.