There is no breath that's like a breath
that's taken three miles high.
And never so deep was a sleep
after days of light in eye.
And water is the most beloved
when burning thirst is slaked.
To starving souls no gourmet meal
e'er bested bread, fresh baked.
I stared, and stared, into a leaf
until my vision changed.
And I could see the whole, wide world
so artfully arranged.
The leaf, it mapped my universe
from atom to the sprawl.
Compressed, layer-on-layer, there
was one and, at once, all.
But before I could grasp all that
this vision truly meant,
a gust of wind did catch that leaf,
and fluttering it went.
The dogs of war are slipping. The ropes they are a ripping. The palms they are a bleeding, as citizens are reading of risks that led to slippage: of quips and of equipage, and how it wasn't expected, and courses were corrected, but still it all goes wrong.
Climbing a mountain, I feel like I've escaped Plato's cave. My senses reel as though they're a crew of newly freed slaves. The sky is bluer, rivers green, each grit granule is clear. And even at the very edge, there's ease in feeling fear. By "ease" I mean not frozen stiff, but like a friend so dear that one can take one's grand peril, a gift received with cheer. Take me to the mountains, I say, where it's serene and real, and I can open up my sight to a world that's ideal.
I've seen in ordinary eyes a special twinkling glow. In rough and sinewy muscle I've seen a grace in throe. From rotund torsos, I have seen a lithesome prance or strut. I've seen a thing called character, in schnozzes that kink or jut. If beauty below the surface, it finds you splendor-blind. Then defect 's not in the object but in the viewer's mind.
We were classed: Consumer.
And that became our task.
The stores grew like tumors,
and in stuff piles we basked.
The flawless deep green melon rind
houses a pink, bland flesh.
The rind - pitted, yellowed, lumpy -
hides fruit: red, sweet, & fresh.
I know nothing
of the sea-bottom,
or of the darkest void.
I know nothing
of the ancients' lives
or how most are employed.
I know nothing
of an atom's look,
or how works, gravity.
I know nothing
inside my organs
or nasal cavity.
I can but know
these simple truths
that live within my mind.
That it's better
being together, and
to err toward being kind.
I stand upon the cobbled walk as scooters whiz on by, and think this world 's too fast for me, and tilt my face to sky. But there's a contrail gash up there made by a hurtling sky-tube that jets its way to who knows where - while I'm the slack-jawed rube. To match the world to my breath's pace, and watch the blur lines form, and hear each note of music played... We'd sync to my waveform.
What will be your master,
and what will be your slave?
Will you court disaster
to be perceived as brave?
Will you call your pastor
to hide that which you crave,
or be your own ringmaster
and own how you behave?
And will you choose virtue,
or live in fear of vice?
Will you choose to be true,
or default to being nice?
And when there's much ado
will you jet their paradise?
Or just defer your view,
as act some men and mice?
the !n(tro)verted yogi 