Thursday, July 07, 2016

Inheritance

                        

think about how many people
how many beings loved their time
and passed it on

and we’ve picked it up
as deftly as a 4x100 sprinter
takes the baton
as innocently as a child
picks a shell along the shoreline.

and what have we done it with it
since?
struggled, aspired, resented, competed,
and ….occasionally
rested
in the beauty
waiting there,
behind the cloudy day.

and then it happens,
one fine day in May,
you’re standing at the edge of the forest
and the haunting call of the wood thrush
brushes your tender
heart.

and your plans come crashing down
like an Antarctic glacier
no ones watching.

you wish there were a vine
you could leap out on,
return to the jungle.
but
others rely on you
and you rely on them.

so you dry your tears
and carry on,

yet someday you’ll get
to pass it on,
for someone else to juggle with,
and you can follow the echo
of the wood thrush
or that beam of pinkish light
shooting up, through the cirrus,
or wherever, whatever
your spirit
wishes
to delight in.