Paths have been laid
   far and short
   narrow and wide
   coarse and moist
   brown from dirt
   gray with asphalt.

Spiders lurk and creep about
   legs poised and fangs ready
   craving another injection
   to feast just a little
   further, just a little
      longer.

We are the prey they seek
   stuck in their strands
   reaching everywhere we walk
   catching us as we tumble and fall
   not for comfort nor salvation
   just the cold strings of wrapture
   before the color of blood
      the color of life
   is taken from us.

Papers are flimsy, fragile
   so susceptible to time
      and harsher climates.

Scissors cut and divide
   thriving on irreparable separation
      to leave us in pieces and scattered.

Rocks are rough and tough
   facing--and looking--the worst
       while enduring every day and night to come.

My choice resides amongst the stones
   constant, long-lasting, dependable
      in the challenges that may have others call
      for support when they can't stand alone
   for maybe the times they lived were too much, too long
after facing the blades which cut them into small, segregated fragments.

This is my box,
home to contrived chaos.
I open and close it
many times a day.

Beside my box
are other boxes
bigger and smaller,
all of them surrounded
by an even bigger box.

And if you left this box
you'd see a field
of boxes
sprawling the land
further than eyes can see.

And how odd is it
--the mere idea--
that all these boxes
adhere to this sphere
we reside upon
like a collection
of living magnets.

the lone survivor is on
his raft at sea
creaking and swaying
in a tide that can't decide
calmness or turbulence

the sun is out yet
the clouds are endless
together in their gray
unison like a blanket
of dust

his eyes greet the waters naught
but opaque and black
were it not for the navy streams
from the poor muddled light
overhead

The universal therapy
a common, household medicine
crafted by collaborations of talents
and celebrated by siblings far
in distance, near in heart and mind.

If ever a religion existed
which all would embrace,
a movement to seize the fires
and conjoin hands
to spread and span,

If winds had a literal way to speak
to our simple minds,
if anything could drown us faster
than the rising expanse
of miles upon oceans
and make irrelevant
the laws of land, gravity and life...