Which Way Do You Lean?

Would you rather indulge yourself in the service of a fine hotel

Or camp in a quiet aspen grove

Would you take an adventure in a guided raft

Or go kayaking with some friends

Is it more enjoyable to order up at an expensive restaurant

Or to cook good food in your own home kitchen

Would it be better to have a new car very soon because it feels so good

Or to get the old one fixed up for a couple more years of service

Would you rather have neat, green and well-manicured bluegrass

Or a healthy un-mown assemblage of fairly-wild, native plants

Would you like to try the tender, tied-down, milk-fed veal

Or our free-range, no-antibiotic chicken

Shall we lay on the beach in our new bikinis

Or walk down the coast to that empty cove

Do you want to explore all the shops we saw coming in

Or take the steep hike on up to the waterfall

Are you having the pancakes with sausage and eggs

Or the crusty fresh bread with butter and jam

Would you rather get cleaned up and go out for happy hour

Or hike up to the overlook in time for the sunset

Would you be more likely to paint your toenails

Or to go for a ride on your mountain bike

Do you always buy the latest model snowboard brand new

Or can you be happy with a demo from the season before

Would you prefer to make a new acquaintance here in town

Or go on a trip to somewhere that you’ve never been

Do you like to stay up until 2 in the morning

Or do you usually try and get up before the sun rises

Would you pop in your ear buds

Or listen to the wind in the trees

Do you study the scriptures for structured and concrete answers

Or try to decipher the mysteries of science

Would you rather hop on your snarling dirt bike or ATV

Or ride off on a bicycle to a trailhead leading to the wilderness

Do you picture yourself with a nice tombstone in a peaceful cemetery

Or do you see a tree planted in the woods, fed by your remains

Would you really like a brand new home

Or would you prefer something older with a little character

Do you believe that unfettered capitalism will naturally yield us the brightest future

Or do you feel that planning and foresight is required for tomorrow

Would you like easier access and urban services in our parks and our forests

Or is it vitally important to preserve our wild places intact for the future

Would you like to skim across the water on a powerful jet ski

Or catch every bit of a breeze on a finely-rigged sailboat

Is your path chiseled in stone after prayers for guidance

Or would you change your views based on new information

Would you rather drive really fast with the radar detector on full alert

Or kick back and save gas while enjoying the scenery

Would you like to pop off your lounge chair and into the pool

Or walk down through the trees and jump in the lake

Would you first get your wrinkles treated

Or have your eyes surgically repaired

Would you rather a piece of rich chocolate dessert

Or an extra helping of that delicious main course

Is Europe quaint, but politically old-fashioned, and pretty irrelevant

Or should we bond more tightly with those with whom we share blood

Would you rather have a beer with friends and watch the big game

Or sip a little red wine and maybe take in a foreign movie

Do you like to discuss opportunities to cash in on insider real estate deals

Or castigate those who took artificial home equity to pay off their credit cards

Would you prefer to remain focused on keeping things as affordable as possible

Or changing our habits to attain a sustainable society lifestyle

Are you at peace with your faith regarding your everlasting soul

Or do you ponder briefly the unknowable in the onrushing void

Do you believe in man’s God-given dominion over this earth and all its creatures

Or is that likely only a selfish rationalization for destruction and torture

Would you rather remain a lifelong conservative, holding fast to traditional values

Or can you tolerate ambiguity and willingly toss aside wornout beliefs

Do you enjoy driving to the health club to read on the treadmill

Or do you walk around your neighborhood to get a little exercise

Do you know how the market is doing and where interest rates are going today

Or are you spending too much time sorting dirty trash for pointless recycling

Do you spot opportunities for a quick profit as you happen to drive by

Or do you see meaningful images on old tree trunks and incised on mossy boulders

Can you build consensus and share a team vision going forward

Or do you prefer small hardworking groups with unspoken communication

When you go skiing do you want the sun to always be shining

Or are you quite happy when it is snowing like hell

Would you rather take the quiet comfort of faith about all things you do not understand

Or burn out in the unbelievable miracle of every waking moment

These are the days I often spoke of back then

These are the days, I used to say, when we would only remember back then like a dream

These days, I now recall saying, we would wonder about what happened before

Now is when back prior to then joins easily with only a confused haze in between

I always felt then that now we would retain but little from that dizzying spiral

At last, these are the days I often spoke of as our emergence from that rapid blur

Details would disappear even as we finally try to consider them during our awakening

Now is when I meant that then would seem to have been too many years, gone by too fast

These are the times I said we would look back from, only to remember so very little

I always knew we could not possibly be digesting all that we were seeing every day

I always thought now we would look back on then as if through rapidly shifting mists

I always told you that it all would pass way before we would even know that it could end

These times, I said back then, we would regard like some old movie, stuck on fast forward

These days I see I was right to say we moved too fast then to have any appreciation

Those days are the ones I always said we would now remember like their old pictures

These are the times to which we left but little to be summed up, in too a short time

Now we have no choice but to try and grope meaning from our own ambivalent contrails

Those days recede back beyond our buckled event horizon into a jumbled darkness

Now memory has compressed the tight wavetrain of bygone days into indistinguishability

Those were the days from which so few events even remain still jutting up enough to be seen

The rest lie blanketed by heavy clouds viewed from far above here in this blindingly blue sky

Tulips in a crystal glass, Litter in the mud

The tulips in the crystal glass are so very fragile

The litter in the mud and grit has nothing left to lose

There is only so much good in the whole stinking lot of us

But that blind spring of entropy flows on forever

The best of us is glimpsed but rarely, and only in a few

Thus we mostly live immersed forever, in palest mediocrity

The beauty of humanity shines through, for the briefest of instants

The emptiness of our normal lives casts an enveloping pall upon us all

The moments of our uplifting are truly few and far between

Torture, greed and death are always just below the surface

The good we do with modest forethought is like a tiny candle in the wind

The brutality of our indifference wracks the world and its people

The innocence of children is but the briefest shower in the drought

The never ending corruption fouls everything just like that dirty tsunami

Music briefly fills our souls with the knowledge of a morning peace

Smashing, shouting and hoarse cackling fill the noonday heat

The calm strength of the ancient mother rights our course just a fraction

But mostly we plunge on blindly, proudly honoring an unconsidered ignorance

The just must often struggle mightily for the smallest victory

Indifference tramples without malice grandmas, sprouts and babies

Those things that truly sustain us are so very quiet and unobtrusive

The smashing sounds of progress fill our ears and drown our thoughts

Sunrise and sunset may awake us for the briefest instants

nights are no longer truly dark and the days are too long, too hot and too loud

New found love illuminates our worlds and fills us with great joy

And then the ash of indifference begins to slowly, thickly, coat it all

The apple tree then blossoms and stands outstretched in a silent exultation

But for months stands gray and wet and naked in the freezing rain

Somewhere, by dint of sheer persistence, a people toddles forward

The mass of us roil on, enveloped in dirt and greed and hate

Somewhere a masterpiece gives rise to a momentary superposition

Elsewhere the fecal tide rolls in a little thicker and higher every day

In a quiet glade, a gentle mother softly licks her newborn fawn

Meanwhile, in surrounding areas, smoky fires burn and diesels roar

One child in a million casts off the chains of poverty, pollution and neglect

Generations without hope share a dirty cycle of need, crime and disease

A man works very carefully for many years and fulfills his one small dream

The masses vapidly follow only the flickering of electronic images

For the briefest moments gentle north light fills our souls

Throughout the crushing work day we are forced to stare into the sun

Our memories are scattered pearls we hope one day to string together

Reality is a strangling vacuum closing in from all directions

A strange and compelling bird cry haunts our thoughts for a brief moment

Commercials blare forever and the laugh tracks never cease

An oarlock squeaks and the water drips upon the twilight dappling a quiet lake

The rain washes used oil from our cars into every little stream and river

The peaceful smell of moist wet spring earth awakens our better instincts

Our children prefer to stay inside gorging on fast food and electronic media

Facts learned about our universe provide a moment of perspective

Truth ground into us daily covers us with a soot that we cannot wash away

Considered opinions adapt like plants to changes in the sunlight

The average impulse purchase provides about twenty seconds satisfaction

Our better instincts serve as measuring sticks for the progress in our pilgrimage

Our overwhelming greed pits us against each other and the earth

A couple work their lives away sharing a dream of golden years

But far too soon one is stricken down and the other shrivels up

Children find an enchanted forest just outside their new home

Soon, however, come the bulldozers to smash and flatten and develop

The gurgle of the smallest stream gives comfort to those who lie sleeping

In the baleful light of Monday there is no time for contemplation

The smile upon an infant’s face lights and warms the entire room

Greed and indifference trample all the helpless little plants

Fathers teach the boys to fish and to preserve the lake for their sons

Armies teach each generation even better ways to kill and destroy

One small light gives comfort in a dark and empty countryside

The vast and pointless city glow simply hides the message in a starry night

A single action adventure story stimulates our imaginations

An endless stream of loud repetitions overwhelms and dulls our senses

Petty bureaucrats, caught at minor crimes, quickly lose our faith and trust

The large-scale lie repeated endlessly is slowly adopted as a working truth

A climax forest achieves maturity after many a dignified succession

Decisions made without much thought often prove difficult to undo

Small wild animals go on purposefully with the only business that they know

Species remain oblivious to the pointless extinction they undergo

Cherry tree stands with its raised branches in a crescendo of blossoms

Soulless heavy machinery gores blindly into the surrounding earth

Baker tends the sourdough starter with a reverent admiration

Corporate farms spread designer crops to pump up this quarter’s stock price

Once we cruised a scenic highway towards an enchanted destination

Now every day we idle for hours in the same anonymous lines of traffic

The ballet of a hummingbird traces a cosmic pattern in the air

Blind greed forms the very core of our best theory of economics

Just a tiny bit of soap could wash the little children’s faces

A gritty dust settles over all of us, from every direction, all the time

In early spring the birds return and begin to sing at dawn

The traffic roars by forever and the litter piles up down in the swale

The day emerges full of promise, still wet with its dewy afterbirth

Then noise and confusion from every direction carve out our insides, once again

Odd moments return to almost nag us in dreams not quite remembered

All our thoughts are slightly yellowed by this dreary, daily immolation

We win some of the smallest battles in the hopeless war that can never end

We fight the good fight daily despite the darkness that is encroaching from all sides