My poetry, etc. ||
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves." Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Immobilized by awe, She stands in the foothills As the distant wildfire haze settles Into the twisting oaks' golden branches. Beams of solidified sunlight touch That aching part of her She usually shields like a newborn-- Cradling it and preventing its exposure To her burning world.
I squint through a window of memories into my past. To protect my sanity, perhaps, I blot out painful recollections as I peruse old photos encapsulating forgotten thoughts. Youthful days appear less melancholy than the present in these carbon-copies of real moments. False illusions of what has been, trick me into believing these days will never be better than then.
How did you end up here? Out in the middle of this river Alone in your little wooden canoe Watching ethereal mist rise To shroud your world In the haltingly beautiful But cold fog of the forbidden And precarious future. You've been on this river for a lifetime. Paddling with all your might Through the lethal rapids, Steering your bow with sober resilience To rest in the deep green pool Of hard-earned sanctuary. You sacrificed passion-- You put your youth behind you For calm water and clear skies, An escape from ghostly mist And white-crested turbulence And all the fallen branches that For so long marred your path. But you ignored all that, And left in the early morning Forgetting your shoes, Carrying every burden Of your uncharted future Onto the silver-curtained river And its inexorable violent current.
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