Carefully

23 February 2024

If I wander out into the ether,
out past all the ruins of time,
can you tell me how much of mankind
I shall find underneath or beneath her,
the One who encompasses all, who calls out
to the thoughtful, from Elsewhere, to dream
of new vistas and old things reborn?
I am seeking her, but with faint heart,
for I hear that her sorrow is growing
which soon must envelop the world.

Is it hope that deceives, or must we
wait for another, to cleanse our hands
and to break the enchantments that strangle
our tortuous souls, ever wandering here
on the night's Plutonian shore? Evermore
we shall wander, unless we can grasp
what it is that so sends us, beyond,
to some Other world, never once seen, touched, or heard.

Confusion and dismay must be expected
but not celebrated. Man is what he is,
not more or less, prepared at times,
and lost at times. There is no other way
to pass the wilderness of life,
so let us be content withal,
the pains we cannot change as well the joys,
and let us pass this much the wiser
sans the pains of fruitless hoping.

Call it coping, but don't call to it at all.
Learn not to call. Instead, fall back into
the life that fills us all, and breathe.
You must protect this life with every breath.
But you will see that it sustains itself
far better than you can. So let it be,
and as your lungs fill near the sea,
believe, and know that you are free
to live a full life, even one lived carefully.