Monday, May 15, 2017

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.