Containment

Outside the garden, the trees grow taller.

Their majesty is breathtaking,

unfurling to conquer the void with never-ending boughs

stretching as far as the roads will go and farther.

I follow these roads, out to the shore.

Even above the seas!

And down into the depths….

And so I imagine myself an undead sailor cast overboard by some storm long ago, trudging along the ocean bottom where the rays of the sun become flickering azure sheets of twilight…  Echoing melodies of life spin, glide, and dance along my path, and sometimes I whistle to these passing phrases, forgetting my fate.  My own song calls out in response, bringing the melodies closer…

The echoes fade into silence, and I am greeted by the cold dark gaze of sea creatures large and small.  I wish instantly for their melodies to return and resound louder, now that they are here, next to me.  Peering longingly into their little orbs of darkness, I search only to find the reflection of my own eyes staring coldly back at them.  And I move on.

Now each step I take is separated by a heavy sea of silence, and my heart creaks in my chest like the sunken galleon of a once great fleet in search of new lands!  Those echoes of life seem only to emanate from distant places, like the light of the sun that reaches my eyes, but whose warmth I will never feel.  And so I move on.

A bough to climb…

Your Thunder Awakens My Heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vguZmqHJ6OA

Today
I have no heart to break.
My soul's a dried and ancient lake.

My lips
so parched and cracking red
...shed what tears would have instead.

Please tilt your ear to hear my friend!
...my story of woe...the tale of my end.

My words
are carrying on the wind
to bring your stormy clouds...
and fill my soul again!

Inaudible Omnimony

Eternal, unending forest.

We have taken but small steps into your brambled walk ways.

No man would find the place of your beating heart alone.

And yet none walk far before the bond is broken

by piercing wooded arms, heavy mist, and fleeting trails.

Eternal, unending forest.

One looks behind to see the light of day,

shining on the unwearied flesh and bone.

From within, enchanting words are spoken

but daylight's safety beckons through a foggy veil.

Then cut the roots that bind your feet!

Shining in the daylight is your solace divine;

your escape is at a rhythmic beat!

Will you return to brighten paths unkind?

Haesoon's song burns through your thoughts!

In your radiance, those harmonies hidden

amidst the shadows revealed our blessed lot:

the footsteps of others lost and lonely-ridden

resound the eternal heartbeat of this unending forest.

"We are the same as those who stay

behind to build their lighted thrones,

all lost with wisdom half-awoken."

Eternal songs for many hearts so frail.

10,000 years of civilization and counting...

I once saw this timeline that depicted the length of time that dinosaurs spent on this planet compared to the length of time other forms of life have spent here. It was painted onto this wall, and in order to see how long dinosaurs were here I had to walk a good distance along the wall, like maybe 25 steps. And at the far end of the wall, in about a space of 1 foot, it showed the length of time humans have been on earth. If in that time humans have gone from being hunters to being novice space explorers, imagine where humanity might be if it lasts as long as dinosaurs. (Just looking this up recently, flowering plants came way after dinosaurs and soon before humans...interesting). I'm always convinced that one of the biggest mistakes we make, especially when thinking about things like evolution and the diversity of life on this planet, is that we underestimate how much time has actually passed. (How are there so many different animals?!) Especially since humans only live 100 years if we're lucky, each generation of people spend all their lives trying to figure things out and once they get a small idea about what the heck is going on in the universe, they die, and the next generation has to figure it all out again for themselves. Even if we're told what the previous generation learned, our inherent stubbornness forces us to figure it out for ourselves, so we end up treading over the same paths. (Actually after sitting here and thinking about it, a bigger factor is probably our own egos and selfishness that keep our thoughts directed toward our own generation and not caring what lessons the past teaches and/or what troubles we lay away for the future.) It's not our fault, but for the most part I'm guessing humanity has an extremely short memory that doesn't allow us to see the changes that time can actually effect over thousands, then tens and hundreds of thousands, then millions, then tens and hundreds of millions, and then 4.5 billion years. Amazing things can happen even in a couple of days, weeks or months.

All your life you've been struggling through life trying to provide for yourself and those around you and the next day you're a millionaire! Weeks later you've slaughtered your financial demons and possess a good number of matieral items you always wished you had. Months later you're redecorating the huge house you and your grateful friends moved into and you're making plans to hire maids, gardeners, and cooks so you don't have to worry about the little things in life and concentrate on bigger things! ...unless you want to spend time cleaning because that brings you satisfaction, or gardening because you like being among the plants, or cooking because you always wanted to learn how to make all those tasty dishes by yourself...Or start a non-profit, or a for-profit, or spend all day turning a hobby into a venerable skill, or do something as simple as stay healthy by working out, or playing sports, or run on the beach with the dog/s you've been meaning to own. Or wait, this is where it could get complicated. All that money ruined your life. (But I'm too lazy to type out the negative outcome. Maybe later.) Yes, 3 months ago you were still sitting around wondering what the point of it all was. You were burdened by the double double toil and trouble of your bleak existence, and it could have been that way for a long time. Ultimately though, this is a bad example because winning the lotto is a looooooong looooong long long long shot.

But there are simpler examples of how things can change, or stay the same. One day you feel great and everything in life is okay or great, and then the very next day you're tired and feeling neutral, and then the day after THAT you're feeling depressed because you saw something that made you sad. And you hold on to that sadness for a few days and wonder where your happiness went, but then some more days pass and happiness is back again, and on this day sadness doesn't make any sense to you. Why should you have ever been sad, or why should you become sad again?? But who knows, maybe a rainstorm is on its way and it will block out the sun for a week and all that staying inside and lack of sun has brought you back down again. Can't wait till next week to get out to the beach, because that will make you feel good! At the end of the month you look back and see that while you were feeling down for that one week or two, overall you were happy and your life is good and you are thankful to be here. But anyway... Last one:

It took my entire life, which when I think about all the things that have happened to me, seems like a long time, but I'm "still so young", for cell phones to go from THIS to THIS!

Buried Treasure

Out of money
Out of time
A blog I started
A blog I'll end
But I'll keep writing
These pointless things
It All is hidden
mind body, and soul

A Sign...

Sifting through 49-year-old correspondence, I come across a little book entitled "Tact" stapled to a memo. Inside the booklet is a little piece of paper with a phrase on it, kind of like the ones you find in a fortune cookie. It says, "Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest." Curious as to where the quote originated I did a search and found that it came from a German Romantic writer by the name of Jean Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter). But ultimately it led me to another one of his quotes: "Too much trust is a foolishness, too much distrust a tragedy." Now most anyone would agree with that statement and find it rather obvious, but to me it's a sign. I have this tragic tendency to go against my own nature; I do it ALL THE TIME. I can give you all kinds of examples, but the most current desire I have is to close the book entitled "Pablo". My thoughts and intentions want to hide. Realistically speaking I can't close it, but yes, maybe I can hide it.

A tome upon an earthen alter, in some cavern beneath the ground where shallow waters cover the surface, gathers no dust from the slowly cracking ceiling, never molds from the rising vapors, but nevertheless the book is open, since it will always BE open. But now it's hard to find, hidden in some cavern beneath the ground. Time does not eat away at its pages, though human eyes could burn through its paper. What a paradox that a book is made to be read but for this book to be read means that it will perish! Might the wind find its way through the earth's cavities to turn the pages, since no hand is there to do the job? Yet a book that goes missing, whose unread words become legend, inspire curiosity, ambitious desire and perhaps even greater emotions, does more to change the world than any book that has been read a million times over, closed and forgotten on the coffee table.

oh wine desire!

it pops the cork on more than just the bottle