you are beautiful.
you are tragically beautiful.
you are notre dame
at night.
you are the eiffel tower
amidst bombshells.
you are the house of commons
and the house of lords.
you are the lone beam
standing after Katrina.
you are the one baby sea turtle
who makes it off the beach.
you are the dark side of the moon.
you are the patch of sand
struck by lightning.
you are the remains discovered
after the plane goes down.
you're a smooth puddle in a parking lot.
you are the creaky stair
that warns of intruders.
you are all of the red skittles.
you are Job 3:14.

say for example,
that you love to play baseball.
[it is your favorite thing in the world,
and you're quite good at it, too].
and before your game,
your coach says to the team,
"if we win, i'll take everybody to Pizza Hut!"
upon hearing this, the players' faces light up-
each one can taste the delicious stuffed crust that awaits them,
and visions of breadsticks dance through their heads.
the coach even brought a coupon book to allude to their possible futures...
just before the team takes the field,
the coach pulls you aside
and says,
"actually, i'm going to take the whole team to Pizza Hut
even if we lose."
well, you would know right then
that outcome of the game
is irrelevant,
but the true joy of playing
comes from competition regardless of winning or losing,
so you vow to play your best game ever.
however, everyone else on the team,
not knowing the ultimate truth,
will play very seriously,
but with great anxiety and nervousness.
they desperately want Pizza Hut,
but know that they might not getting it.
this game is the most important thing in the universe,
and it is the most serious test of all time.
every at-bat is tense for them,
each fly ball could result in ultimate damnation.
nothing is fun.
with tension and anxiety,
they strike out, play conservatively,
and don't take the risks that make the game enjoyable.
quickly, the team finds itself trailing by a few runs,
and sweating profusely because of it.

you, on the other hand,
would feel more relaxed during the game.
you would swing for the fences,
knocking a couple out of the park,
steal a base or two,
make a diving catch.
play your best game ever.
you can do this comfortably
because you realize that you're just playing for fun.
you're going to Pizza Hut after game, whatever the outcome!

soon, in your exuberance,
you'd let slip the secret to a couple other players.
you'd tell them, "guys, we were always going to Pizza Hut,
let's just have some fun while we play this game."
most of them rejoice!
[a couple real serious ones doubt you and resent you.
you'd surely smile, bend a knee, and applaud their solemnity.]
but in your state of joy you include the doubters,
and you let them believe what they will until the final innings over.
you think, they'll wake up soon enough.

with the last out made
and the last run scored,
maybe you look at the scoreboard and see yourself in the lead,
maybe you are a few runs behind,
but the smile on the coach's face says it all:
the peace and joy within you brought into your world happiness...

... and a large pepperoni pizza.

i am convinced now that
no passion exists
like that between
a man and his craft.
no love
like the love for solitude,
by which one can enter
a world all his own,
and plunge to its unfathomable depths,
carelessly disregarding his return.
no quest otherwise compares-
oh how could it?
when countless years of history
can never be retold,
never be reenacted
with different players and different settings?
a man plays a role for
a day, a month, a year, a decade,
then withers in the sun, a palm in the desert.
no amount of memories can be remade,
and no amount of care is remembered.
he is destined only to be vessel of loneliness
for others to mistakenly join and unjoin.

but in his craft
a man loses himself.
he has only his love to invest
and only his love to be returned.
when stricken with failure
he selfishly laps it all up,
gathers it close to his heart,
and holds it as treasure, locked and filed.
he searches for the bottom with lighted torch,
the end with relentless fervor,
finds no evil along the way to be a hindrance,
has no expectation dashed and destroyed.
his eagerness for success drives him deeper.
his delusions of grandeur,
perpetually emboldened.
come find me, i am waiting for you
the solitude beckons him into its fissure,
the cleft in the crust of civilization,
indescribable and hardly intelligible to others.

yet its perfection is infinite as the stars are remote.

with enthusiasm does a man pursue that perfection,
does he pray to be with that god,
Lord of his life and Giver of his breath.
he is a post for flags to be hung,
seen only by those who wander the same mountains,
searching for a chasm of their own.
he is unaided in his walk with the stars,
windowless and guided by celestial phosphorescence.

a man needs silence,
darkness beneath his eyelids,
and space in his bed to breathe.