Life is a sticky matter:
    we get more stuck
    than unstuck-
    we can't duck!

Life shouldn't be over-rated
or romanticised
this would only
have us later agonised

for we'd but have lived
through rose-tained eyes
where pain or suffering
would not arise

only with the march
of time,  to lament and realise
we'd self-deceived, believing
that there were an earthly paradise:

life we shouldn't over-rate
or romanticise
its bluntness , harshness
and sorrows we've to learn to recognise

Life has to be lived
though some might not
find it beautiful:
they manage somehow
with a calm acceptance
and don't succumb
to despair or grief-

fragile and vulnerable
is our very human condition
we look before and after
but seldom find our equilibrium

the self is our greatest burden
we bear as best as we can
life has to be fully-lived
it can't ever be abandoned.

I prefer
the word 'woodland'
to 'forest'
it's inviting-
(the latter
I associate
with 'being lost')
and I imagine
it's laden with rest
poetically expressed-

woodland
once my childhood heartland:
after school
there I was
chasing butterflies
in my school-dress

a cool stream
ran between
the foliage
I was lulled
by bird-songs
that drifted across
the silent space

woodland
is good-land
my bed
of tender memories
how could I
ever forget?

Religion then
I had none
when compassion
set in---mine I found
all at once:
no church
nor place of worship
an intimacy
I share with only
the Transcendental
where absent totally
is the search or reason-

the self-diminution
the letting-go
the renunciation
the non-attachment
and the final liberation-

if I need a name-
I'll call it the
'religion of man'

When you are
your own agent
of change- you create
the desired environment

If I should die
this do remember
with no regret:
I'll still love you
in equal measure
from the Other Side