Ode To an Enemy

My friend Rama has written a very moving poem that I want to share.

Dear friend, enemy,
doubly am I beholden to you:
for it was your ceaseless attack
that drove me to the depths of my being
to find my true self -responsible, inviolable, precious.
But more than that, it is through trying to find
your most compassionate and protective core
within the mist of your supposed enmity
that I am plunged grieving, sobbing, breathless,
into intimate love for you
from which I emerge unvanquishable,
having drunk of the elixir of life.

How then can I but be utterly at your mercy?
I shall suffer in silence -not your slings and slander,
which were merely phantasms of my own creation;
nor for missing your friendship,
for I have been and am one with you;
but this futile loss of precious life
flung cheaply into the bog of sloth
to be compacted and thrown into the flames of purification.
There shall you be, friend; friendless
while I, your enemy, grieve your absence.

For only in the fullness of all
lies my own.