radicaldruid.com

If what is real is unseen by the eye
and what surrounds us each day is a dream;
if striving is just filling time with try
while waiting here to die in vain, it seems

a pointless waste, a useless, crying shame
pretending our investment is worthwhile.
Who cares who wins or loses at this game,
or if the victor chooses skill or guile

with which to gain advantage? In the end,
if all is merely ghosts and make believe,
why bother with imagine and pretend
that we arrive, and killed by time, we leave?

Because. Because the journey is the point.
Enjoy the view; it does not disappoint.

Last year about this time I dug into nanowrimo and started writing an autobiographical novel. Sadly after about a week I ran out of time, steam, focus, and purpose, although not necessarily in equal proportions nor in that exact order.

This year I find myself with even less “free” time. Between the 12-hour days driving to and from and working in Shreveport, I’ve got about three hours a day during the week to hang with Sondra, eat, and pet my dogs. Weekends there’s usually at least one gig, shopping, the endless house task list and catching up on sleep – again not ranked in any meaningful way.

So I’m not writing a novel this year. By next month, I may have some more time to at least blog/journal regularly, but there’s certainly no guarantee there.

Thoughts are of course coming fast and furious. I don’t have time to catch them – and catch and release doesn’t really work with ideas, most of the time. I’ve begun to better understand impermanence, however, so their loss affects me less and less. I never really owned them in the first place – and besides, who was it that thought them, anyway? That person is dynamic, and he who waxed philosophical yesterday is as real as any other historical figure.

What was I doing while others were sleeping?
What did I dream while I seemed wide awake?
Something or Nothing, doubt or believing?
What falls like crumbs when the world starts to shake?

What was it moving while all things were silent?
Who was it whispering there in the dark?
What in the stillness of time felt so violent,
Lighting the slumbering world with a spark?

Who is it wondering, who asks the question?
Who takes a step and declares it a path?
Who testified, and who raises objection?
Who hears the riddle, and who starts to laugh?

What was I doing while others were sleeping?
Was it me dreaming, or was I awake?
There in the silence, a moment of weeping,
Mourning the ripple now lost in the lake.

29 OCT 2018