THE EARTH LOOKS BELOW

The earth looks down upon itself.

Its gaze transfixed on the crust of its floor.

Every creature born there grows old, likewise looking downward.

What is it about this planetary mass that draws our eyes below?

Where the paths we endlessly traverse

become lines that our eyes seldom escape?

As though the same gravity which keeps our bodies rooted,

also captures our gaze;

its pull on our lids too strong to break free.

The falcon floats on drafts of air,

its body drawing lines in the sky.

But its eyes, too, remain powerless to look beyond the land of walkers.

The moon beams brightly upon the earth, pulling at its fluid core.

He circulates her form, captivated by her beauty.

But imprisoned to her will, even he looks downward only.

God himself looks down upon the world,

and finds there a tarnished object.

He is moved with compassion, and disgust.

We gaze upon astral planes and ponder what lies beyond.

In this we find wonder and awe, praise even…

The aspect which elicits wonderment, confines also to a temporal existence.

Infinite space and time stretch beyond our reach.

Here we gaze, from time to time, for answers of being.

But met with silence we return below, the curious expanse unattainable.

What hope exists in that which is beyond knowing?

What purpose the brevity of life in the spectrum of eternal magnitude?

None perhaps but to continue forward, gazing below, motion by motion…

Until the dying light reveals everything, or nothing at all.

NO SOLACE IN ETERNITY

There is no solace in eternity.

No comfort in the mystery

of life without finality.

The nature of the earth

is constant in its path,

while the world itself spins out of all control.

History has but limited time

to tell a story soon forgotten

that once was known

now lost in tombs of countless tragedies.

What breathes the life into a mass

that causes it to think or feel?

Inclining it to love and fear?

To fear all that it does not know,

so knowing nothing, nothing does it feel.

Can significance exist within a timeless universe,

born itself from what was never there?

From nothing we emerged, to nothing we return

When all that’s left is placelessness, exhausted we expire .

Like a nebular explosion, like quarks within a quasar,

on and on and on we go.

We exist but know not why.

Material, yet immaterial.

Mindfully our hearts incline toward a vast eternity,

but mindfully our minds recline in static finitude .

Seek then purpose, seek then hope, seek forgiveness too.

Seeking answers, finding questions,

our hope persists eternally.

But no solace can be found in eternity.

THE SUM OF ALL THINGS

With infinite complexity, the rotation of the earth

speaks a narrative place

through intricately predictable motions,

but the story changes each time.

Silently, timidly, a snowfall kisses the face of the earth

enshrouding her body with the purity of love.

The crystalline flakes a chilling balm,

and a crushing burden.

Patiently, tenaciously, the roots of a tree

splinter through rock and bore into earth,

claiming life

where pressure and time have hardened it into stone.

But the rocks, these monuments of strength,

defiantly immobile against ravaging storms,

break apart from the thunderous caress,

changed by their battering voice.

Soundlessly, invisibly, A leopard prowls the night.

A glorious and shy beast embroidered in black onyx and gold,

stoic in purpose

and fearful of its beauty.

Furtively, curiously, a child walks among us

emboldened by a promise, a mystery, a quest

that might reveal the core secrets of her life

or scatter them like seeds in the wind.

And what is life, if not the rotation of the earth or the fall of a flake?

What is love, if not the push of a vine or the break of a stone?

What is hope, if not the movement of a leopard or the faith of a child?

And what is faith, if not the sum of all these things?

BLOOD MOON

The moon hovers in the shadow of his lover.

His motion slow and steady, perfected by the toil of his eternal rehearsal.

Each move calculated, measured, and cataloged

but holding secrets in the scars of his broken, beaming face.

No measure of speculation nor projection of purpose into his being

can surmount the serenity of his sorrow and diminishing light.

His existence, evident only by the burning ray he reflects,

momentarily eclipsed by the circumference of his lover's form.

Forever captivated by her jealous love,

willingly he follows with wavering and circuitous commitment.

At times far adrift, at times in close approach,

but always with the fervor of a curious traveler.

He burns with passion and fury, seeking solace in the cast of her beauty,

patiently waiting for the night of her shadow's return,

that once again the motion of their bodies

may entwine in a dance of beauty and blood.