I
Sometimes a shock is needed to wake us up
to send us in a new direction
All the signs are there that we’re still alive
and yet, as we breathe
The breath feels forced and heavy
like a mash of cloying mud filling the lungs
II
We wade through life, but our legs are hampered
by the constant reeds
The world seems ever more frantic
with each blurred spin
One day you realize something has to give
but what?
And so you slide back down and try to breathe
but those little shallow breaths
Are like a prayer, connected to a higher meme
III
Joined in death as well as in life
events conspire to keep you attentive
The stars seem to shiver under all their
synchronous complexity
Chaos ascends, striking at the heart
of every nation
The world teeters on the edge
of cataclysm
Contagion spreads
The thin veneer slowly disintegrates
Meltdown looms and the masses congregate
to vent their anger
The economy flatlines, nothing works
But you learn to recognise the stillness
at the centre of the vortex
IV
Time begins to ripple by you like a river
It has no hold on you
A wall may crumble somewhere
in a brutal land
Or a vine of tents suddenly bloom
across a public square
Crystals sigh in their immortal caves
Children are born and adorn the Earth
like morning dew
The kiss of the dying feels cold
on summer’s wanton lips
V
You watch for signs and feel a power
trembling through you
Somewhere in the fabric a code is revealed
A rain of numbers, ones and zeros
a pulse of light
Raw data surging through in liquid tones
Pure bliss
The sound of lightning spearing the Earth
Static slowly clearing on a fuzzy screen
You touch both your hands together in front
of you
And find yourself awake inside a dream
VI
Catching your breath, the revelation
is almost too much
For you to hold in
If time is a river, then what do I hold
right here!
But slowly as your mind begins to quicken
you are possessed with only
One humbling thought
That this is the work you must do
from now on
Down here at the river, with the Sun
as low as it is
Away from the crowds and their prisons
of tears
You must always be doing this
Searching always for those precious things
that conceal their light
In the womb of the Earth
VII
What we hold in our hands is a force
beyond measure
The means by which all things grow
Shining like sunlight at summer’s highest ingress
And flowing through every atom
and nerve of our being
Its gift is a blessing to all
Although many have tried to capture
and to possess it
It cannot be replicated or scanned
into any machine
It refuses to be calibrated or measured
For it is the substance of all matter
No underground vault will ever be capable
of divining its mysterious essence
Or simulating its incredible speed
Nothing can stop it, for it stands
at the centre
Of all that there is
And yet somewhere, deep down
within you
You knew all of this
