Escaping the Cave [Common Meter]

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.

DAILY PHOTO: Fortifications of Leh Palace

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To Walk or Not to Walk? [Haiku]

an egret saunters
 with purpose as the insect
  stands stock still.

Overgrown [Haiku]

a building's corner
 shows like the edge of a face,
  under a tree's coif

DAILY PHOTO: Anjuna Beach

Tree as Totem [Haiku]

the world beyond
 the nearest tree
  often feels suspect.

Jolie Laide [Common Meter]

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.

DAILY PHOTO: Funerary Mosque, Bidar

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