In Search of True Conviction

I have tried repeatedly,

looking down the long and convoluted

barrel of politics

riding upon torrential tides of

indignation

straining for hope within

shadows of dark and ominous speculation.

Since I first discerned the difference

between

pain of injury and

mother’s haunting and delicious embrace

between

rapturous melodies of a songbird

outside my window and

hurtful disappointment

between

stern admonitions of father and

the unrestrained joy of holding

ephemeral beauty within my feeble grasp

between

the morbid anticipation of darkest night

and the fiery enchantment of emerging dawn,

I yearned for the discovery of explanation

within the crucible of doubt.

For me,

there is no escape from

questions that hold

no simple answers

from

an endless discourse

with sweeping time.

I have savored

love with delicacy and

crazed abandon,

I have enfolded friendship

yearning for connection,

I am no stranger to

mishap and disaster.

I am the child of my generation

yet

inevitably fall back

upon my inimitable self.

I am forever puzzled by

this muddled world

where humanity unfolds its destiny

a strange and enticing enigma that

holds no resolution to the

ceaseless quest for understanding.

This life has spanned

over seven decades

enfolded a caravan of dreams,

vivid panorama of exploration and

abiding disbelief,

stories of many textures,

expansive landscapes and

hapless desire,

its inevitable catalog of pain

and memories sweetened by the

fortuitous breath of love.

I have tried repeatedly

to understand,

to encompass truth

as if it had a palpable presence,

to leave a trail of remarkable inspiration,

to be remembered.

What I have discovered instead,

to my awakened and awkward surprise –

true peace of mind lies within the arms

of continual acts of

delicate and determined surrender.

An Incomplete Creation

Thousands of years of civilization

yet still mired in stupidity.

Lofty conceptions

taken to such philosophical heights,

yet we consort like crazed hyenas

over the corpse of our collective indifference.

Remarkable discoveries inspired by the

insatiable curiosity and heightened intellect of

our higher brain,

yet we gleefully slaughter each other over the

most inane differences.

Enviable desire for spiritual development,

yet so much unnecessary suffering

wrought from religious belief and

inflicted upon those deemed unworthy.

Thousands of years of civilization

yet still confounded by our own ignorance.

Responsible for expanding our collective understanding

of this remarkable universe and the

fantastic planet on which we reside,

yet we plunder the very resources

that grant us life and behave as if

we are unconscionable idiots.

Science and technology its primary offspring have

taken wondrous strides over the millennia

yet the practitioners of these arts imbedded in reality

are dutifully ignored and even discarded

when their conclusions are not what we choose to hear.

Capable of such nobility of spirit

selfishness of purpose

and infinite generosity,

yet we pay homage to

thoughts and ideas of little substance

demeaning to real possibilities

enabling unimaginable grief and despair.

Thousands of years of civilization,

yet still behaving as if we have learned

almost nothing.