Two people will form

a community, any --


trio will split up.

Nomadic tribes
Surviving off
Sacred lands

Settlements, touching
Each other daily
Communities

Houses and highways
Fields and byways
Interaction

Learning about one another
Good vibes, bad vibes, no vibes
Loving, ignoring, hating

Cities, nations,
Ethnic tribes
Why?

Why not love
Why not learn to live
Why not learn to live together

Learn empathy, compassion
Learn acceptance
Study self, accept
Study others, love them

In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
life watches from the shadow
And the stars go squawking
but Life remains a blessing
No winter without a spring
beyond the dark horizon a brighter day
For those who leave us for a while
Out of a restless, care worn world
Our hearts will once more sing
a sun will always sing
and a sky will carry our heart into stars.

Sometimes the sunlight

glints in the drop that I am --


in the sea of life.

I like to run with

the hare and hunt with the hounds --


Is that my freedom?

The more words I learn
The more apt I get at conveying the precise notion
But
The more words I learn
The further I separate myself from those I’m writing to

I cannot explain to those
That I need to hear me
In such a way which is meaningful
To them
for me

I toil on
Learning to say something simpler
Clearer
Despite the barrage of stimulus I wish to demonstrate
I toil on
Saying what's been said
Stealing greater sculptors scalpels


I am undone

Belonging

The feeling that you will always be
welcome
                accepted
one of us

Your faults forgiven
Your triumphs celebrated
Your past and future
An integrated part
of our story

Such an important feeling
Vital
To our sense of community
     our sense of self

The ground feels shaky
Prone to destabilizing quakes at the first crack
If that feeling is lacking
                                              Or withheld

The floor disappears from beneath you
If that feeling vanishes
                                          or is withdrawn

Who controls this feeling?
Can just one of us
                                 withhold it?
                                 extend the invitation?

Usually it takes more than one
Of the us
To expel or invite

But perhaps
The most important
The most influential
One of us

Is you

At the end of the day
You decide
                     consciously
                     unconsciously
If you are worthy
Of belonging
Of being

                                One of the us

Sometimes though
The better question may be
Are we worthy
                            of belonging to you?

Flirting on the topic of community
One finds themselves at a loss
Both in knowledge and in influence
We lack control

To define morality
To define discipline
To define nature and what is natural
As much as it is a social construct
It is just as much a personal construct.
In being so, as much as we lack within ourselves
and as much as we lack in being a community
Humanity loses adherence
And yet strengthens its adherence all the same

As much as one may believe we advance as a society
We lose ourselves
Societies cycle on, only words change their meanings.