I believe they
learned the ways of
Simple living,
Meditation, and change
From trees' perpetual enlightenment.

I was talking to the stars one other night, and I asked,
“Why does anything exist?
It takes so much energy,
It's so much work for anything to exist.
It's not necessary for the oceans to teem,
For the trees to flourish,
For the birds to fly,
For the humans to love, hate, strive, and live.
Wouldn't it be easier for the universe to not exist at all?”

The stars laughed merrily and replied,
“And where would the fun be in that, you silly American?”

The golden tree offers hope,
and the night field welcomes the sleepless.
if we acknowledge the forest floor,
we will find our future path
and gold and silver
and beauty in our artificial lights.
in the details of the shadows,
we are blinded by the glares.
at the perfect angles, if we look just right
we can wonder
if balance should be the goal,
and if we should take the stairs one leg
and one stumble at a time.
If we sway with the gusts,
if we lay on our fronts,
if we feel the world around us,
its texture, its depth, its tactile reverence
and blur our ignorance of touch
out of reality
the details disappear
illuminate
the subjects submit
and pose for the moment
their value is recognized
their simplicity,
their essence
emerge,
envelop,
captivate,
trance,
in awe
of this evidence
can you imagine?

Are you not beautiful until someone tells you?
Are you not worth every chance of focus?

Attempt effortless existence,
Release your awe
fall where you lay
fall asleep as you blink.
Goodnight, all everlasting.

Passion
free from falsities,
untethered by tragedy,
unhindered by corruption,
untouched by treachery,

Passion pure
free to roam in awe and wonder,
eager to explore in hope and desire,
amazed to discover love for and from,
enveloped by Bliss

Immersed Emerged
Swimming in new renewed

The swine twists the twine
til the poison tastes like wine.

Everyone raised their glasses and cheered
For all that they had had to fear
Sat defeated and hopeless
Behind glass walls.

There lie imprisoned
Our reflections, the demons, the insecurities.
Smile,
Power only dies when it thinks it's invincible.

The swine sighs as it dines,
As the shrine entwines demise.

What is the sight of blood?
The essence of our mortality,
The horror of our brevity,
The factory of harmony,
Nourishment
            life
                awe
of, in the soul's home.

The Journey:
You can explore the extent of your boundaries,
Even transcend, but not without punishing balance.
Tipping, favoring a side, pulling it tight until
The Breakage:
Crevice filling to the brim, trickling to the depths of the
unknown,
awaiting, translating

Crystallization as the realization of the
personal scheme, the ego's circus, the mask-maker thrives,
the cultivation of sorrows contrives the demise of
Our own Evolution of sighs.

CRYSTALLIZATION
The process of modern self-identification.
We must fill a mold,
Originality must fold and
Collapse into a labyrinth.

Choosing to choose the options listed in front of us,
Never looking around or inside us.

What a clever game,
Self-aware while we remain ignorant essentially.
Climbing the hills, ladders, slides, and valleys
Without choosing to excuse ourselves
To a life without the conventional rides.

Perhaps, it can be no different...

The rose grows from the ground,
Some hidden, some found.
No ears, no sound.
We cannot fly.
To gravity, we are bound.

It matters
What matters
(it matters? what matters?)

For what exists has an opposite.
For what is freedom worth without captivity?
Where would passion be without apathy?
Wind, earth?
Peace, bloodshed?
Comfort, pain?
Fury, forgiveness?
Decay, fecundity?
Fundamentalism, atheism?

The world, our world, is a world of opposites.

Our building blocks are composed of
The Paradox.
A balance of what is inconceivable and actual.

Tip the scales, and Bleed.

What is the sight of blood if not tactile evidence
that we cannot live
unless
we pick ripe flowers and decorate our hair
with the nourishing caress
of petals and their precious fragrant hearts
and procure compassion providing possible sensual mysticism?