Pressures,
forces,
twisting levers—
gears ratcheting down
little by
relentless
little
against a box with
no walls
and no way out.

What is waiting for my weight—
for the matter I carry,
for the energies bonded within me?
What is lying dormant—
anticipating the day
when my body lays itself down—
so it may drink from my cisterns
and eat from my stores?
What will come into Being
from my ceasing to Be?

It is a temptation,
isn't it?

We sit and we wonder
volatile thoughts
flowing through tumultuous minds.

It is a temptation,
isn't it?

I was watching Worlds—
Worlds far removed from mine.
They dissolved my notion of Import
along with my concept of Time.
I was watching Worlds—
Worlds far removed from mine.
I saw our disconnection
our thoughts have made us blind.
We're lost in Worlds inside of Worlds,
within Worlds made in our minds.

Judgement is our prison:
     the bars, lock, and key.
As we build its walls higher,
     our perspective grows smaller
Until our confines of Measure
​     become all we can see.

The Death of one world
is the Birth of another.

Listen to the Mountains
speak and they'll tell you
stories of the Ocean.

Standing on a dimming stage
in the echoing stillness of our Plot—
fixed in the Silence of an
audience deprived of intimacy:

The Death of a world
that never knew Life.

Surplus is burden.
Expectation is limitation.
Hope is anxiety.
Fear is confinement.

A heavy pack is a liability.
It does not help to carry more than you need.

Our world is not crumbling.
Those are mere numbers,
those are just games.
Listen to the roots warming,
they're humming in the ground.
Watch the crows snapping limbs:
structure for uncertain wings.
Can you smell Spring's fertility
in the changing air?

Move before the walls tighten,
go before you’re asked to leave.
Breathe in that old t-shirt one last time,
the one that still holds a faint
remembrance of a past lover’s scent.
Say your Pagan prayer
as you lay it down over
the yellow burn of split pine
and watch your spirits
dance to one more song — 
twisting and flowing up the flue,
whispering their final, dissipating
goodbyes before joining the
ocean that waits to greet them
beyond the stack’s order.

Goodbye my lover.
​

Submit yourself to Nature's voice,
this is not a fight—
your enemies are of your own making.
What are you scared of, Death?
Do you also stand in rivers,
attempting to halt the water's flow?

We are panicked because we've divorced
ourselves from Nature. We feel our lives and
time to be of singular significance.

We are panicked because we don't
accept consequence. Consequence
comes later—we think ourselves exempt.

We have proven ourselves inept
at mitigating our impacts, inept
at living and multiplying sustainably--
inept at respecting Nature,
our Planet, and those we share it with.

Nature is not an enemy—nor is Death.
Disease is a tool they both use,
they know when and how to use it.

Nature's virus is Her shining testament
to the limitations of the scientific mind.
It stands as the form of humility,
served with exponential growth.

There is nothing of singular significance
within my bones, heart, or skull.
I am merely a fragment of Nature's Flow.
I did not choose to come here,
I will not argue when it comes my time to go.