we take too lightly to later unmake
we take only too easily,
Calling what is done as done and dusted.
In the perfect state, what does it matter?
But wait, let a minute go by
In this perfunctory haze,
I catch your amused bewilderment
Take my eyes, let me show you the way high
What’s this here…
Like a woman of stories and fairy tales,
She lies in wait for daylight to change color
And draws upon her face
A million expressions that tell her children of sudden misfortune,
Of timely rescue and of restoring the good king to his crown.
See this guy here…
Like a man who enjoys scaling the scope of tall tales,
His calloused hands tucked into his coat pockets; he quickly strides along his way
He must stay to pay two more installments on a house he owns
As he swiftly thieves his way into gain,
Using fraudulent terms and conditions to deny people their insurance claims.
In a big bad world, the end justified the means, until just now,
Flash news: the house he bought collapses and lies ruined in the rain.
Woven into all this, who watches it all? Who sleeps? Who wakes up? Who thinks? I wonder…
Who then, is amused, is befuddled and sometimes alone?
I put my running shoes on and walk out on this world into my own
While the world's weariness crawls up in our socks
Telling of the friction between feet and the ground we stand on.
They say, home is where the heart is
Home is in all places where these feet may go
Bend the light. Perceive what we will, of a great illusion
With frequent bites of figments of imagination
There are yet so many things in this feast for your eyes,
in places of mystery,
where only those of pure faith are belied
to know what moves the prime mover,
who thought of the sweetness of the jasmine bough,
the swiftness of the humming-bird’s wings
And who, the gentle grey might of the elephant in the jungle.
From a womb that conceives the delectable and nectarine
Also comes the brutal sharp sting of the bitter.
We return home, everyday, safely in time
for the transactions of ordinary life,
for packed sandwiches and a can of milk.
We return to the childhood memories
of games we played in laneways that know no strife
Sometimes, the less we know, the more we know.
Except we grow up and fight to kill weeds
in the garden that has grown up with us.
One only needs from life, this:
a shelter for body and room to stretch one’s feet.
And feed only this: the thirst to drench something core-deep
And nourish a part of you you’ve never met, with love.
I wake up to draw a breath and to say hello
Cuttlefish, prawn fries and sweet pale ale
Grace the atmospheres of a traveler’s diary,
garnishing pages of lore with basil and coriander
as the smell of morning bread comes wafting out of her bakery.
Today, I’m taking chances in a divided world
to make one more odd turn in favor
of perhaps some whim or secret wish I had as a child
to bring happiness around me, of pure intent
A poet and a painter reside
Still, in the driver’s seat, in the very soul of this world
Unperturbed by the ebb and flow of the tides
Where peace is a creeper that grows
We journey on, while home and hearth
Are keeping watch
of times between
the place to go
and the place that has been...
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