Frothing, swirling, gushing powerfully
through the course carved over millennia,
water tumbles in a torrent that rips and scours.
In other places soothing, languid, meandering, here it promises death,
******* in and spitting out, a violent turbulent end.
…
If not death it brings rebirth.
A new being spewed into a new reality.
Nothing and everything is changed.
A new consciousness is born with crystal clear awareness
of the simple wondrous blessing of life.
…
It is here I wish to stand, scoured and tested,
the viscous stultifying clutter of the past torn away.
Clear sighted, I would truly know the wonder of being,
a fierce burning joyful knowing,
rejoicing in the miracle that is life.
…
And if this gift of new awareness came to me
how long might that pure joy and wonder last?
Too soon it might be gone and I the poorer.
But tested I’d have seen a truth that would not fade,
that by simply being, just simply being, brings peace.

Faced with danger
Fear turns to anger.
Muscles bunch,
Blood pumps,
Awareness sharpens.
A state of coiled readiness prevails.
Energy is harnessed.
**** or be killed.
The stakes are high,
Life or death,
No prisoners taken.
….
Faced with danger
Fear turns to anger.
Attack on the heart,
Internal,
This wound bleeds malice.
The retort must match or better still surpass
In delivering pain.
But who the victor
In this exchange?
Both hurt,
No prisoners taken.
….
A fatal strike
Brings confidence
A sense of mastery
And status
A survivors glory.
But that which protects, can also poison.
Human spirit crushed,
The soul’s wounds fester,
Hidden, unhealed.
Dying yet living,
Anger has wrought fear instead.
….

There’s no other choice but to wear them,
The drawer offered nothing but these.
An odd pair of socks might be quirky,
Odd sizes don’t normally please.

The one at my ankle was spotted,
The other was striped to the knee
The latter two sizes the smaller,
The former quite large by degree.

This mismatch I thought to keep secret
And cover the dissonant pair.
I chose from the wardrobe some trousers
And shoes, with considerable care.

My ruse would conceal the divergence
From prescribed social standards of dress
And none would be any the wiser
My discomfort I’d have to suppress.

Now, it’s harder to mask discomposure
When physical pain has attacked.
The small sock had cramped my toes tightly
That blood didn’t flow, was a fact.

My colleagues regarded me strangely
For they could see nothing amiss
But I could feel cold perspiration,
Anxiety I couldn’t dismiss.

It was then that I felt a strange itching,
The striped sock began to descend
And round my right ankle it wrinkled
And bulged at the trouser leg end.

Dismayed at my great consternation
But clueless to what was awry
My friends made comforting gestures
Need of which I could only deny.

The moral of this story’s transparent
Socks are always best worn as a pair
Their nature is in the relationship
Which provides a well-balanced air.

And take the trouble to remember
Be congruent in all that you do
For disparity will often bring discord
And that path, you’ll certainly rue.

First I thought that life was fair.
Then I hoped that life was fair.
Then I learned that it was not, but tried to make it so.
Then I knew that it was not and sensed a loss.
Then I tried to make it fair for others,
Then I helped them grieve,
But I did not
And suffered long.

Now others comfort me
And gently draw the tears that never fell.
And soon,
Perchance,
I will accept life as it is,
And change it not
And thus
It changes me.