POEM: Enough is Enough

The question asked:

"Am I enough?"

Which begs the questions:
-enough for whom?
-enough for what?

What would it mean
to not be enough?

The Economist in me
says no one ever
acknowledges when 
enough is enough.

[That's what we are
taught as baby Economists:
that the fundamental 
condition of human existence
is that people's 
wants are endless,
but resources are limited.]

In yoga, we have
Santosha & Tapas
[contentment & discipline,]
which seemed at odds 
to me for a long time --
until I considered 
that being happy 
with who one is 
is only in conflict 
with efforts to be
a better version
of oneself
if one makes some
pretty f***ed up
assumptions. 

I've been told,
on occasion,
that I'm "too much."

I don't know whether
this is better, worse,
or morally equivalent to 
being not enough.

POEM: Evergreens

Evergreens line the trail,
transporting me to a place --
higher and harder --
where one might expect trees
that refuse to yield for seasons.

POEM: Downstream Movement

everything is one thing.
the way we are rivers.
and all things are nothing;
as takers are givers.

i'm flow-er and flow-ee --
twisting as I'm drifting,
not fancy or showy 
nor highly uplifting.

just a leaf on a stream,
bumping into others,
gliding through a fond dream
with sisters and brothers.

Milky Glow Tanka

boulder churned
water sloshes to mist,
sunlit white --
its milky glow rounds
the gentle riverbend

POEM: Burning too Hot

The festive fires were burning hot,
too hot for their own good.
They melted through the rocky ground
just feet from where I stood.

I stepped back, wondering whether
the fire would burn right through
the planet to the molten core 
making a jet-like flue

to push the planet from its path
out toward somewhere strange,
and by the time the fire 'd frozen
we'd be beyond home range.

Then I realized that it was I
who burned far too fiercely,
and all this from my febrile mind 
was just thinking weirdly.

POEM: Choices, Choices, or Not

arches echo ahead,
stretching to the end of time

left into the labyrinth,
right to the blinding sun

it's a land of stark contrasts
on one side, great adventure
but great peril

on the other, painful monotony
of well-lit spaces

then there's straight ahead:
a ceaseless repetition of today
throughout all your tomorrows

POEM: Pale Skies

bleached in bright sunshine --
thin, wispy white clouds
are barely seen 
amid the washed out skies

some summer day -- 
sending one running 
for sunglasses
to avoid a blinding headache

it seems the world 
might fade into a 
tabula rasa, or
blanch anemically

POEM: The First & The Lost

So long ago I remember 
events that weakened knees.
My mind a haze, my heartbeat hard
my soul eager to please.
When I was moved by subtle touch,
a gesture, or a tease.

But now that I'm an older soul
I've lost that state of mind,
but wish the world would grant me yet
one golden chance to find
the return to that state of life,
where love and luck are blind.