Currency of Fear

July 2

CURRENCY OF FEAR

Fear pays the way for my disease to enter.  Once inside fear seats itself front and center.  Fear is the currency that allows entry to the far reaches.  The coinage is ancient and steeped in tradition.  There is no time or place that hasn’t been moneyed with fear and its derivatives.  I can’t hide from it so my job must be to educate fear.  Fear is real and has a place as protector and warning.  But fear expands with ignorance and devalues the purpose of caution.  Fear cannot buy safety, though I can use it to pay the toll across the bridge to balance.

Speckle your tongue with new words.

*

Origins

At the root of it all is darkness.

The place from which I grow,

the structure that holds me fiercely upright,

is pressed on all sides by dirt.

When I get right down to it the ethereal leaves

and twigs, even the branches, do not exist,

except for my foundation in the composted death

and recycled life; the ground.

For is it God who rains down from the heavens

light and water or is God truly living

at the center of the earth,

warming my toes and securing me to what is real.

Surfs Up

November 16

Surfs Up

The first time I arrive at the beach the tide is a shock to me. I had no way to anticipate it. As the days pass I calm, realizing there is a rhythm and that the sea won’t escape the shore. Over time I begin to anticipate the movement and then rely on it. I learn to live with the in and out nature of the water lapping the lip of sand; what it brings and what it takes away. I am human. I adapt. I survive. How do I make the jump to blessing the moon? How do I touch the divine?

Forgive your common errors, make note of the uncommon

*

ENDLESS PASTA

Having limits, in a seemingly limitless universe,
makes me feel horribly inadequate.
I am a sad little creature
in the face of overwhelming tasks.

Pressure and unwarranted ego
compress my ability and eager disposition.
I am forced to see there are choices
outside my qualifications and willingness.

Going on in the face of crushing requirements
extrudes my life force into a plateful of capellini
Lying exposed with no gravy to keep me warm
it is hard to realize in this world of wonder and delight
a plate of naked spaghetti can’t do it all.