These words are your gift-

You are embarking.
You are leaving.
Yet, this time there is no movement.
Life spins us these ways,
around the dial, along the axis of our mind,
and back again.
But I have always measured my life by cycles,
by water returning
from air to land to stone to sand
to sea,
by the clockwork of people
who always find a way back.
I am learning to live life differently.
To take moments as shadows of clouds
on a sidewalk.
I must enjoy the passing of shadows
as much as the return of favors.

Do not live life by patterns,
the world knows its cycles, they will continue
without you.
But the flow of half-truths told by the tide,
“I am here. I am gone. I will touch you.”,
or the pain
of watching a Texas sky go gold go dark
go away,
these things can be held.
to them, we can apply the word:
cherish.

I know this is a form of release,
that you do not like these lessons,
for they play upon design and control.
Learn this one.
Stand upon the six and force your turning
to stop.
Hold the hands back, force your turning
to stop.
Hold the hands back, link the fingers,
twine them and begin your realization.
Time is not cyclical, it is a line.
Why must we cycle, return to memory, anticipate?
Now the option is ours, to move
outward, away, ever-wider
until, like clouds across the ground
we are cast upon the earth
as we are filled with light
filled with air.




GLS
3.2.93