Wait, What? Was I Ever Really Here?

The seconds making up this roiling present always seem to be speeding up, don’t you see?

Still, they pass through the portal of the moment one at a time, but just faster now, for me

That really old clock still slowly ticks off the numbered minutes of my wandering musings

I think I may have been dreaming since I cannot really prove that I have not sat here forever

It’s been hours since the twilight shadows were enveloped by that cold winter darkness

They had filled me with their emptiness and then simply gone off in some uneven silence

Then I thought about how long its been since the first time I said that I never saw you again

So I was left to question once more, if I had ever really even been there

But then, after maybe a brief ten thousand years, who was I who might have said anything at all?

Less than the shadowy blurs of all the memories I fumble through, as if in the dark

That small boy who, thinking back, came to that one memory before which there was nothing

Me, confused in my senility, losing sense of the life that I never had time for, in my prime

This recurring sense of unreality in my present casts a very suspicious light upon the past

Looking for a way out, I even try to rouse myself – As if this might be some sleeper’s dream

Calling forth pictures of who they are now, I cannot recall the path back to what I knew

Yet, scraps of old papers with names and dates do seem to locate me at given points

It all passed by so quickly, leaving an ever-compressing set of hazy, randomized images

I really did await, one at a time, each of those brief holidays I simply cannot separate now

Guess that probably wasn’t me, so who was it then in that there, which doesn’t exist anymore

So that must mean, in point of fact, that I am not really here right now, as well

A Few Revealed Cosmic Truths

Lurking in the fantastic rock and icy rime formations in far off Patagonia

Mutely testifying in the ancient volcanic peaks of Colorado’s snowy San Juans

Now glowing greenly with life behind the mists of a waterfall in western Canada

Once again in the dusty sunset casting orange shadows upon the Sahara dunes

Overt in the tender embrace of the Emperor penguin pair late in March

Subtle in the bird-filled potholed beauty of summer on the Northern Plains

In the deep blue of ocean waters far from shore, it came to me once again

So strong in Autumn when the trees ignite in their colored riots

In the books of physiology, anatomy, astronomy and cosmology

There in the depths of her brown eyes and the soft timbre of her voice

Echoed in the stately waltz of sun’s planets, moons, asteroids and comets

Exploding into the air with the glistening Dali colors of leaping giant blue marlins

Sensed in the sound made by a heavy snowfall when all else is so very still

Mirrored in the music made by those who bring it forth for us to bear witness

Exactly the same thing from the loon far off across one of countless northern lakes

Part of the cold but fiery light that flares just for moments on distant peaks, near sunset

Chanted in river songs that never change theme but never repeat a single riff

Whirling under the great hazy wheel of the Milky Way on moonless winter nights

Left in messages on mossy boulders, tilled and striated by ice age glaciers

Within the phases of the moon and the slow flowing of the sun with the seasons

The amazing electromechanical mystery of a lifetime of regular heartbeats

The physical constants which could not differ, even in their 8^th decimal place

Pattern and order of huge swells coming to the shore in perfect weather

A baby elephant surrounded by aunts as he peeps out from under his mother

Warm-blooded miracle of the mighty bluefin tuna racing in schools at 35 MPH

The earth’s heat balance unconsciously maintained by the great ocean currents

Marine fossils upthrusted in the high Himalayas, tracing millions of years in earth’s history

The massive blue whale gently nudging her newborn upward, to its first breath of air

Mathematics we uncovered which predict the orbits of heavenly bodies

The ability to see backwards in time through the lens of a telescope

The complex web of interactions that makes up good living soil

The orderly struggle of succession that results in a stately climax forest

The fault tolerance of the mammalian brain in its reaction to even savage trauma

The incredible functionality bundled within every tiny common house fly

The feel of the gnarled exposed inner bark of an ancient bristlecone pine

Pondering those Greek, Roman, Mayan, Incan and Cambodian ruins

Puzzling over the differences between the uncountable and the infinite

Visualizing length from the quantum scale to light years in distance

Imagining time intervals from tiny Planck units to the estimated age of the universe

Mute testimony of a feathery archaeopteryx, petrified for unimaginable eons

Miracle of the hummingbird in flight revealed by ultra slow motion film

Spring dawn over the Andes flying south from short and gray northern December days

The wonder at our invention of cheese, wine, bread and beer

The boggling number of stars in each of the astonishing number of galaxies

Mystical, detailed and semiotic patterns on the birds, reptiles and amphibians

Perfect silent grace of a healthy mature tree, wherever it was chosen to testify

Surfing the warm salty ocean with a view of snow-capped Mauna Kea

Love which lasts for years even as the crazy world changes while we age

Observing Petri dish population growth curves over time

Trying to grasp the timeframe of earth’s ages in comparison to man’s short history

Earthrise on a silent starry black background, tiny against the surrounding void

Realizing the meaning of our endless, futile and brutal religious struggles

Seeing our perfect footprints completely erased by that first gentle wave

Shivering with wonder at the wolf’s lonely howl in the endless winter night

Realizing the hopeless, but inescapable, moral mandate, despite our endless struggle

Involuntary loss of vision, strength, vigor, endurance and fluid intelligence

The consummate and non-reflective, totally unstrained adaptation of all the cats

The instantaneous color responses of the octopus to changes in background and stimuli

Computing acceleration and velocity and their changes at any instant

Seeing dolphins and seals riding the waves for their own personal reasons

Watching killer whales toss live baby seals into the air to teach their own offspring

That deep, true aboriginal veneration of the earth and its cycles and its creatures

Tacit, yet unbreakable, contract of the bear, salmon, eagle, coyote and raven

The whisperings of a spring tide running strongly into a wide and deep inlet

The welcome warm sun on a cool day upon emerging from clean water

Being very close with a loved one as you both prepare for them to pass away

Laughing out loud time and again until our stomachs are sore and tears fill our eyes

Missing the rhythm and beauty of all existence long before we leave it

Glory of the late Pleistocene mega-fauna, now all gone away once and forever

The 100 million year reign of the dinosaurs already over for 65 million years

Tales of the Black Death, its Grateful Dead and our ashes all falling, falling down

Peaceful sounds of children at play mixing with bird songs from all directions

Rapid tracings of an electron gun we perceive as a stream from another reality

Raptor crying overhead casting echoes down a quiet canyon

The lessons we pass on from our slaughter of the buffalo and the Indians

The tectonic peregrination of the very continents, all about the globe

A sideways glimpse caught in an unexpected mirror by a momentary stranger

Watching as wavelets from our pebbles merge and fade away upon a quiet pond

Club Them With Gentle Parody And Unearned Mercy

Tyrannize them with your merest example, torture them with a vast but unassuming modesty

Beat them down with an unbroken stillness, dilute their poison in an infinite sea of tenderness

Let their twisting tongues fall harmlessly only upon their own self-deafened ears

Punish them without the slightest trace of malice using just a bit of your priceless grace

Hurt them deeply with but a wordless mercy, strike them down with gentle voices

Club them like those baby seals but with simple stillness, then smash them with patient smiles

Shut their mouths with children’s laughter, attack them savagely with fresh flowers

Muffle them with silently repeated mantras, let merciful raindrops sully their agendas

Cuff them about with cosmic quiet, put them down with ragged grins from the homeless

Rinse out their greed-blinded eyes with your own salty tears, hack at them with happiness

Silence them with endless earbud recordings of their own foolish and empty braying

Tamp down their angrily-shouted sound bites with your own long and reflective pauses

Cripple their overwhelmingly selfish greed by exemplifying what shall be held important

Smother their toxically smoldering, useless malice beneath many layers of honest goodwill

Betray their selfish hatred by bonding together with the common people of their enemies

Topple their top-heavy propaganda with polite and quietly reasoned conversations

Sterilize their fundamental beliefs with that soft light from within and just lay down their arms

Batter their egos by merely turning away, punish them for life with simple acts of kindness

Dwarf them beneath a vaster cosmic consciousness, deflate them with gentle parody

Starve their overwhelming need for attention, help them to wash off all that garish makeup

Puncture their inflated egos with divine inattention, parry angry shouts with friendly nods

Waterboard them with laughter, bury them in cosmic blessings, make light of their big lies

Waste them with wisdom, quarantine them behind universal love, rob them of bitterness

Drain their greed into the onrushing void, empty their pride into the anonymous eternity

Injure them severely with a vast disinterest, paralyze them merely by ignoring their antics

Dwarf them with visions of the infinite everlasting cosmos, smite them with unbounded pity

Lacerate them with simple honesty, leave them alone to suffer themselves in solitary

Bury them under the burdens they left for the future, defile them with that perfect bliss

Starve them on a diet of their own empty words, remove their blindfolds just at the abyss

Confound them into madness with inexplicable charity, empty them by forsaking greed

Crush them by gathering in non-violent protest, bewilder them with lighthearted pardons

Impale them on their own sharp and poisoned catchphrases, disable them with soft laughter

Confuse them with the certainty of eternal emptiness, blind them with that radiant light

Humble them with a good-natured concern over their shortsighted goals and childish needs

Slash their greedy creed with the sharp truth from ancient wisdom they so scoffingly ignored

Debase them quietly, but brutally, with constant reminder of the effects of their actions

Accustomed to a total darkness we could only fear the sun

We can find no success greater than our most miserable failure

Death cannot even visit where no life is to be found

Even when none are beautiful we still choose the fairest from them all

Where all are obese, the least heavy is deemed to be quite thin

Our greatest victory always implies their equally agonizing loss

We can be no more uplifted than we have already been debased

If I can love with all my heart so can I hate with all my soul

If there existed no humility neither would we witness excess pride

The deeper my laughter the more rending could be my tears

Without knowing any sorrow, how much joy could we really feel?

Without such sickness they do not appreciate their better health so much

If most are blind, those who see even blurry shapes are deemed true visionaries

If war is our natural state then our peace must still be full of strife

The biggest lies always somehow ring with some tinge of truth

I would not recognize the greedy were I not raised by the generous

Water only satisfies us to the degree of our thirst

They love best the rain those who have been through the entire drought

They will not call out the evil if they do not know the good

To appreciate such a spring as this you must have been here for the winter

The instant of creation ensures an absolute and certain death

Small as we are, we view some among us as true giants

Little satisfaction comes without enduring some long-held desire

If all we ever heard was music, what would we think of this piercing noise?

Accustomed to a total darkness we could only fear the sun

No one knows an old thing if they have never seen the new

One knows not what it means to take if they haven’t been taken from

He does not know he hurts someone if he feels no pain himself

I did not know I had always felt bad until I grew a little better

A different future cannot be crafted should we choose to ignore the past

We watched their futures become our past

As our days we slowly passed

we watched their futures become our past

In all those instants nothing changes

Then all at once it’s rearranged

Born as children, not like those with that white hair

Yet slowly we assume their shady chairs

As three generations pass while we grow tall

At last we become the next to fall

The minutes pass at first so slowly: Summer never seems to come

then the years fly by so quickly, as life flees before it's done

Through all our moments we string together

a tiny blurred fraction, we think of as forever

So slowly do our days we gather

it takes quite a while til nothing matters

Cast with fossil bones or glimpsed as insects trapped in amber

Brief, sideways glances we now scarcely remember

Our lives and history seemed to be so everlasting

in brief insights revealed by merest instants flashing

Long awaited events stored in half-remembered jumbles

Lives so short, but memories only incoherent mumbles

Time spent always looking forward to myriad trivia

Then off into the insensate void, delivered to an empty oblivion

In the end and looking back, it seemed as if it were quite long

yet I know I could not finish my confused little song

Both far away and long ago take on different aspects

On that day we stare back so blankly from empty caskets

Still we bend to pray for guidance with our knees to the earth

round our sun inside the galaxy, within a cluster, in just one universe

Having written in the beach sand, the hand of man, it shortly pauses

and just as quickly all life ends of insensate causes

Just as all things we thought important so surely disappeared

Their monuments and their memories shall no longer be revered

In the eternal mountains we lay our dead to rest in peace forever

though science tells us the peaks will not resist the weather

We work away the many years with vague promises to ponder later

then comes the day that quickly ends our short stay here

Our breaths will have a finite number, our heartbeats too, a small round figure

But time in the void cannot be grasped by any mathematical rigor

Long the sunset, fine the twilight, in that wondrous, warm June summer

but at last full darkness must induce, a perpetual and dreamless slumber