I was a mountain.
You, a lake: placid, serene.

But something happened.

And you, overflowing,
coursed through me without warning.

I could do nothing.

I was a mountain.
I stood proud. Alone. Complete.

But your path changed me.

You washed over me.
Scouring paths where there were none.
And then you were gone.

I became empty.

"We become aware of the void as we fill it."

-Antonio Porchia

Today I rode my bike.

I pedaled up a hill, my heart pounding, my breath becoming more and more insufficient, and at the crest
I relaxed, and I thought about the sweetness of the end of struggle.

I thought about the sad peace in letting go, the sweet and the sour of giving up on something.  The slow and simple melody of necessary death.

All things end.  The difference between tragedy and poetry is all in the timing.

There is a rhythm in nature, bigger than, more complex than us.  The Time is not ours to keep.   

I pedaled on, and maybe 50 meters later, I had to swerve to avoid a piece of plywood with three nails jutting out, eagerly seeking tires to destroy.

It was hot, but I shivered a little.  Too close a call.

Now that's some drama,
yeah?  Just like we think we want...
Really though.  Enough.

Moaning and crying
while you trudge through your dark woods:
wasted energy.

There's too much to do
in my sweet bull-headed heart.
Now gather yourself.

Dark woods don't scare me.
Old news: I've been here before.
Smile, chin up, go on.

Trailblazing

I am slipping and sliding and going nowhere at once.

I have everything and nothing to give to you.

I am angry: because I love you but you keep doing such stupid things. Stop.

I used to worry over the distinction
of blazing new trails or being lost in the woods.
But you know, they are the same.  Completely, sickly, terrifyingly the same.
It's all in how you spin it.

I don't really want to wander into the dark woods.
And really, who can blame me.  I'm too old for this shit.
But then, the way there is takes me nowhere I want to go.
The map they gave me sucks, or maybe I just can't read it, but either way, it's too late now.

I want out of the dark woods.
I have to get out of these dark woods.
I will go in this way, and find my own way out.
Because once one goes in, she must get back out.  C'est tout.

Keep on.
Chin up.
Keep on.
One more step.
Keep on.
Breathe.
Keep on.
Don't wither.
Keep the fuck on.

This is the glamour of blazing new trails.

some beautiful, glittering, tantalizing words from the one and only mr. poe

I am come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that is glorious- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable," and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi."

(from Eleonora.)

On impermanence:
Sacred places, washed away,
too literally.

This is not a dream.

The wheel spins too fast,
violently.  Our only prayer,
centripetal force.
Apart, we're all lost.

Sometimes acceptance
is knowing that things must change.
The universe speaks,
less gently: listen.

The earth is crying.
All that she's borne pouring forth.
The earth is crying.
And now so am I.