Daily Archives: January 12, 2003

Journeys and Destinations

My house says to me, “do not leave me, for here dwells your past.” And the road says to me, “Come and follow me, for I am your future.” And I say to both my house and the road, “I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death change all things.” —Kahlil Gibran

Each time you draw a straight line in the sand,
or as Kabir says, “when you put one foot
in front of the other”, you have defined
a course of action, a new direction

that leads to an unknown realm, a future
where there is no map; Krishnamurti said
it was a pathless land, this place where truth
waits, longing only to be discovered.

The safety of a dwelling place, its warm
familiarity, can lull to sleep
(but yet never fully anesthetize)
the wanderlust of the wild, searching soul,
that beckons us to dare beyond the stoop
and forge a fresh road into tomorrow.

12 JAN 2003

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Time

For some, the moments pass and they are gone,
lost in some unending chasm of space
that leaves only frail wisps that linger on
in memories that fleetingly can be traced,

and the ever-arching line of past days
stretches beyond the grasp in a dull mist;
many seek in vain along hopeless ways
to recapture a brief second of bliss.

But I, at my best, am like a river:
traveling at the speed of now, ever on,
knowing each minute eternally here;
and along some bright thread, all time quivers,
and its intervals form an endless song
with overtones that do not disappear.

12 JAN 2003

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Family

Sometimes, it’s hard to exactly define
the difference in density of blood
and water; often, it is a blurred line
that wends its way through a desert of crud,

and like the Sufi story of the stream
that, at the edge of the Sahara, must
give up its identity to the dream
of air vapor to cross the endless dust,

the slow process of evaporation
can change your perspective in such strange ways:
each old point of view is renewed in flight,
and you find each troubled situation
only serves to reconnect bonds that stay,
and feeds old dreams with a familiar light.

12 JAN 2003

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