Across the pond the willow tree
in gentle swaying majesty
tosses her lengthy locks of hair
in the breeze that sings through the morning air.
She fixes a bird on her head like a pin,
and, when the water is still as a glass, gazes in.
Then, lest she should err, I wander around
to the shore where she stands on the uneven ground
and tell her such measures are not to be borne,
for the willow tree’s beauty looks best unadorned.
We move –
to the beat of music and of urban sounds,
with the formless bustling of a thronging heard
and to the steady surging of the clock
that chaos made and humans bridled for their own –
we move
with confidence wherever we go
by every means we can devise
that this noise us from nature has excused,
with hardly glance toward the encompassing sky.
I love they way your eyes turn up
on either side when you smile.
They do the same for everyone, I’m sure,
but yours are the only ones that infect me.
And when you fix your hair,
and ask me how you look,
and smile in the way you do
I simply cannot help myself –
and then I smile too.
My task is not to give you
the answers of the soul
but to plant in you the questions
you must answer on your own.
We are not the finished product
of a past to which we slave
but a deciding factor
of the product of the grave.
Packets of truth
eloquently stated,
in definite form
or indefinite,
produce a fleeting feeling
of connection,
of epiphany,
of truth,
in the minds of those
who read and linger
or move on.
There is a place where truth exists
and facts are left behind.
For those of you in doubt of this,
search in the human mind.
Too often my search for meaning
discourages rather than fuels me.
I’m too focused on theme to enjoy novels
and too focused on purpose to enjoy life –
but for those rare moments when the world shrinks
and exists only in my arms or the walls of my home,
babbling, exploring, and grinning up at me.
Then I’m no longer searching,
either because I’m distracted or
because I am reminded.
Is it enough to live vicariously
through fake lives of fake people on TV?
For some, perhaps, but not for me:
there’s so much more I want to be.
When I was in elementary school
and wanted attention from a girl I liked,
I’d wander off somewhere alone
in hopes my love would come for me.
I do much the same thing now that I’m married –
but with less hope.
Sam Bartholomew's Writing Blog 