The Great Search

That is the wondrous thing: we fall apart

When we give in to our desire for more

Than what we have been given from the start.

Too prone our restless souls are to implore

The vast known sunrise for a fiery dart

Dipped in its raging flame, prepared for war,

When all we need instead: a change of heart

And peace of mind with all that came before,

To wander with the world, to wait and roam,

But never grieve the loss of leaving home.

I think, I form, I temper, I create,
And this is no small matter: I was born
To chase a blue horizon and to sate
A most perplexing itch, that which has worn
These grooves into my forehead: something great
And noble, far beyond a twisted thorn
That pricks between my ribs, and all my fate
Displays the hidden thing when I have sworn
My eyes, my ears, my feet, my longing touch
To one thing, yet another just as much.

It matters more, the mystery that's taught

In rhythms of the reckless, than the pain
The monk endures to purge his growing rot
In trading sorrows vast for greater gain.
The disciplined may die; the youth will not.

The teacher sows; the students reap the grain

In fields of kings and conquerors that sought

The same: the sort of power that their reign

May benefit the most from but would kill

The soul, the very fire of their will.

My violet sun falls slowly in the West
To leave her twilight trails upon the seas
Like gathering manna for a day of rest
And parting from the shade beneath the trees.
To wonder, and to wonder for the best
Few moments of the day, what then would please
The petals, pink with spring and summer blessed,
In hoping they would dance along the breeze:
This roaming free, the end from day-to-day,
Will surely, evermore, begin to stay.