the river inside

8/3/2019 The River Inside

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The River Inside

Copyright 2004 Matthew BlevinsAll rights reservedSt. Louis, Missouri


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BOOKI

EARTH DOWN


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Reader:I have loved you from the very beginningI cried when you were born; indescribably happy

I sat with you when your body died, holding your head gentlyNowlet us talk of everything in between.

Love is the greatest attribute of the soul. To love unconditionallyand understand the suffering of the world; to fight hatred with lovethese actions are divine. Drop your possessions, burn your house,give your riches to the state. Gather up love, plucking it like vibrant

flowers speckling the lush hillsides of the earth. Give those awaytoo. You will perish, but your bouquets will bloom forever.

I hunt and harrow the human soul. Oh, how I sing to it rapturously,carry it in my arms, and drape it softly on the doorstep of myself.Bring yourself to me vaunted carriers of spirits! I am the amorous

sphinx keeping safe all public highways and deep worn ruts of the world! I confound cynics by seeking beauty in a workingmanshands and defy lords with my unfailing confidence in the powerless.Reader; stand up now and let me break the manacles that bind you.I give you yourself in a braver, more heroic capacity. I charge youto awaken a new selfa self that loves completely; that treads won-drous shores lightly with a careless buoyant heart. Let us set out on-to the open road together. There are so many miles to walk and

people yet to meet. Do not fear what fate we may someday meet.For all tragedies, deaths and failures are brittle boughs soon to par-ish in my flame! Better to kiss me now than leave life with a regret!Better to dance with me now than wonder what a passionate mo-ment feels like! Better to blind your eyes with truth than be everwatchful with a soul that cannot see!

The day I died I brushed my hand across the cosmos. Am I still aboy in the park beneath the Milky Way, or am I nothing now? Low-er my coffin into the stars and throw eternities upon its silence. Icommand the face of the corpse to remember there is still laughter


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everywhere, and I exhume all the love which is buried alive (there istoo much buried, reader.) What is love but deaths coffin? Wheredoes death hide in the morning when the inky blackness fades? AndI know my poems are larger and better than I. For they love easily,like an apostle working miracles for free, and I fear the hands laidupon my blind eyes. I do not disbelieve, but I have beautifuldoubts. I know the road is long and there are many travelers uponit. There is so much to see and people to become (always moreselves to drink.) There are no continents, only paths; no lifetimes,only journeys. Only outstretched fingers of God on her weddingday. You know I express myself better with howls of glee aroundthe campfire than with a pen and paper. I explain to the sick what itmeans to be endless and surrounded by nothing. I give encourage-

ment to those who have yet to fall in love I gently remind themnothing is loveless forever.

I am certain love and hope cannot be slain (what is a lifetime butlove and hope in perfect repose already?) Gather me up, friend. Iam plentiful and easily gotten. I will not hide from you or greet youas a stranger. Take me to your bed and be still a while next to me. Iwill awaken. Even now my silence has beautiful stories to tell. Sing

to me as if the hymnal has already been opened and the trumpetblown. I am the eldest of the old, yet today your bed is my cradle.Bring in the doctor and the priest, if you must. Let them announcemy illness terminal. (I know nothing can be terminal life cannotbe denied for long.) In the deepness of me rages an undefeatablething. In the wideness of me soars an uncatchable thing. My soul islike a shaft of light traveling between stars. But I know it is also abroken leaf fallen to the earth collecting rain.

So send home the curious; the blood-letters can do no more! Myterminus is not a changing of sheets, a wet cheek, a reading aroundan open grave. (ReaderI once made love to Derya and hiked the Appalachian Trail in the springtime. There is no death unless Imake it so.) Stare at the starlight and drink from the leaf. Fear notthe wildness I have become or the distance I have left between us.You have only to hope and love and I will awaken.

Do not be afraid to travel your own journey; to arrive and set-outagain. Your safe passage is assured; a champion walks beside you,


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ever-watchful, ready. All roads rise from you eternally and run toyou eternally. You shall pass on. You shall return. Hear this, myfriendyou are more beautiful than you will ever know. Now goforth atop the deck of this world with your new love-song and in-domitable human spirit.

Camp with me at the height of the waterfall. Nestle close under myrough chin and silently count the fireflies as they soar around us.Fall deeply asleep and worry not. I will stay awake all night andsearch for falling stars in the distant reaches. I am standing foreverover you, keeping you safe, offering my life freely. (I have stood

guard over all cribs and gravestones for countless epochs now.) Iwill tell you tomorrow if another blessed earth plummets from oursky.

There are no half-truths here, reader there is no falsity. I couldnever speak to my true love in well rehearsed lies. I promise you theend is beautiful and the darkness different than you think! Long agoa little girl grew a new universe inside her and became the protector

of all beauty everywhere. Reader - that new creation was you.

I collapse in heaps and shatter into thousands of loosed souls eve-rywhere! I return to the elements and the endless! I loosen my holdon life and set free the lovers and sonnets I contain. I explode inbright sentiments and release my love in amorous geysers thatdrown the stars. I live only to exhaust you and learn your riddles. Idream only to replenish you again eternally. I am crazed and ex-

treme and unapologetic about life! I believe and remain faithful toyou until the end. I do not doubt my sufficiency or search for amore perfect destiny than mine own. What better soil for the grassto someday grow atop but me? In me, life has met its great ally andtrusted camarado. No hand is held or soul saved but that I witnessit and love it dearly. No skeleton lies still that I do not cheer andencourage and remind of happier times. No despairing person criesthat I do not wrap my strong arm around and prepare to do battlewith their demons. No fellowship of children romps that I do not

envy and drink deeply from their sea of joy.


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Awaken your spirit. See only beauty; experience only truth. Themountain lake reflects the whiteness of the morning clouds. Cry.Can you imagine anything more beautiful or inspiring? How excit-ing to set to the task of life. The adventure awaitsyou, the hero,

taking arms against immeasurable odds. Can you see the long roadsof gold, winding into the distance? Never return. Fall in love andbe gone. Pound your breast and scream lustily into the night. Youwill never again live life as deliberately or as deeply as you are now.

Let this be your maxim:Always

Search for the truthStrive for spiritual perfectionSurround yourself with beauty

Lend a helping hand to someone in need, inspire a dream, and givehope. Reach down and lift with humility. If you cannot conceive,adopt. If you cannot have certainty, have faith. If you cannot re-member, relive. Offer yourself up as a living sacrifice to everythingyou loved when you were a child. Stay fascinated at fireworks,thunderstorms, and bugs. Live your life as a great experiment, livingit so dearly. Laugh easily. Make love.

Anons to you life with your flowers blooming wild in the garden.Days like petals and nights like nectard stamen to my soul. Beauti-ful moments like down feathers falling all around me. Lace yourfancy daisies about my neck! O Supple neck of my dark-hairedyouth! Caress this soft skin and pray that we never wake up. I bleedexcess life in great rivers. My lakes are all oceans. My paths, orbitsaround something colossal and misunderstood. My love, evidencethat even the lonely have worthwhile dreams. Caretaker of my soul!

Long have I unraveled your plan in the artwork of the evening sky.I know there is no wisdom lost and wandering alone. I see every-thing and enough in the low light as my friends gather around thebonfire. (I smile and wonder who has sent them to me.) Grand


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continents and souls that fall into my loving embrace! I will neverscatter you, or drop you, or ask you to return home without a kiss.There is no anger or regret in this giant heart! (You cannot knowanger when you see life naked and gorgeous; when you sit with meon the beach and hear me recite Thoreau.) Life! I turn my body,this turtles shell, over to you to destroy. I empty my pockets, setmy shirt on the sand, and race into the foamy swells. Dissolve meslowly and reckon the sweetness and simplicity of me. I will leaveeasily and without complaint, like I came. I can still remember thegirl in the coffee shop with the sad eyes. She said that the flowers inthe park where yellow and matched her hair in the summertime. Ireplied with a poem written years later and finally given to her in awish

Reader:Together we lay; our bodies warm, soft, surrounded by deep pil-lows. I kiss you tenderly and whisper my favorite secret to you.My lips rest on your lithe neck. Your body falls, passionate andtrembling, into my embrace. How long have I loved you and

dreamed you would be mine? How beautiful was the moment Isaw you across the room and asked your name? Let me pull thecovers around you and smooth out your hair across the bed.Let me draw out your breath and your essence in quite throbsthat warms my cheek.

You doubt my intentions and believe I must be something separateand apart from you. I swear we are part and parcel of the other.Where do you end, and I begin? We are fruit of the same vine, tiedto the same soul, stretching toward the same light in eternity. Now,let us lose our suspicions and forget our differences. There is notime for them when the morning light comes. That I loved a milliontimes before will never brook my desire to swoon and seduce you.

Be at once a poem and an epitaph. Is not a poem the final powerfulblow dealt to death by the living? Is not a single beautiful thoughtthe internment of all the graveyards of the universe? But I tell you


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also that death is a deepening poem unto itself that cannot be fullywritten by the living. And death remains a thing I know is lovelierthan we think. Perhaps life and death are lovers whose kisses arenewborn babes and voices soft funeral hymns. I also know that lifeand death are pleasant words poets use when they can find no betterway to explain this festival of existence. Why should I die for a dif-ferent reason than I lived? Am I more complete in the end than inthe beginning? Reader what fanfare around my deathbed couldbegin to outshine one moment of my manhood spent in love withyou!

I say you should not fear the gentle sleepfulness of death and thedreams that may come after. The distance spanning life and death is

small when seen from a far away vantage. So the sun witnesses nopain and the galaxies are haunted not by an ending. Death! I castyou away; but you are not a net thrown over life! I realize no strongbond can bind the mighty hands of the living. And death casts meaway and laments why I have returned to taunt and defy it. But Iam not here to enslave what cannot be mastered or write poems thatcannot be read. Life is a miracle worked by death in its will to pre-server. Death is a dove sent to deliver life into new hands forever.

Yesterday I dug my own grave deep and sat upon its lip celebrating.It is a great mistake to think dirt can hold me; for long ago I gavemy soul to the children playing down the street. Know that in an-other place, in another time, a new mother will bear me up - likefields of lilies opening their flowers forever. Know that my bodymay die, but I do not go down with it. As my eyes burn out the bet-ter part of me takes flight over ranges of forever and plays in vastfields of heavens stars. Know that I search beautiful places alwaysand await patiently my moment of return.

You are a poet, saint, philosopher and redeemer. Summon up thevast powers at your disposal. Ignite the molten fires at the core ofyour being; they have waited lifetimes for your triumphant return.You are man in his most uncommon hour. There are many enemiesto face; thank goodness you are here! The time is now. Be coura-

geous and bold; it is expected. Be strong, humble, loving, kind, wise, just, and selfless. Become a being more divine. Yes, I havewitnessed you bathed in the brilliant light. I believe in you. Now,gird up your loins and go.


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Are you a disbeliever? HmmI was too before I met you. There ismore truth in you than you know. Give me your hand, I will showyou the drifting boundaries of forever, where all things someday go.I will take you to the field hospital wracked with moans; to terribleplaces where despair melts slowly. But I will also take you to placeswhere laughter is a sound gathering like a thunder, where life brimsin mighty fountains I cannot begin to describe. Look through andbeyond them. All things are beautiful in proportion to the way theyexplain the inexpressible. You too are beautiful in many ways thatyou do not yet understand.

I remember the time I kissed her on the front porch and felt thegoosebumps rise on her stomach . I remember the time in theSmoky Mountains I watched those bear cubs play and I began tounderstand Gods plan. I remember what the sunlight felt like onmy chest as I ran the long trails of Patapsco State Park. I remember

the first time I held my nephew Christopher and realized I too was asmall wheel in the machine of everything. I remember the fantasticwarm nights of Panama City, screaming under the moon, dreaming,knowing it would never end. I remember law school and the greatpeople who endeavored to live an uncommon life. I remember sip-ping wine, listening to the symphony in the park, watching childrenplay beneath the trees. I remember what I saw when I looked up atthe midnight sky in the Georgia woods. I remember the beginning

and end of everything; how I felt when the doctors told me the timewas near. I remember the endless sunshine, the white sand beaches,the boundless mountain vistas, the warmth of her touch in thedarkness, the laughter that never died, the overwhelming sense thatlife was something larger than I comprehended, that time was mean-ingless and true death had already been vanquished.

I dream only of origins and first principles. I think the growing soulof a child is the foundation of the cosmos and all tiny saplings areplanks supporting the deck of the world. What is a unified theory ofeverything compared to the enlightened mind of a single person? I


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have been told the One Soul bleeds rivers of beings forever. Butwhat does your small human spirit bleed into the watershed of life?I have heard you are the mythological boatman over rivers of soulswinding their way back home. So perhaps your part in this beautifulromance (this legend of everything) is more important than youknow. And the origin of me is everywhere and complete. And theorigin of you is vast and indomitable. And what differences we haveare easily forgotten when I run my fingers through your hair and restyour head on my pillow. I tell you all differences are dust and shad-ow. All similarities are truth and ecstasy.

Reader:Lay beside me. Let me tell you all this with my hands and eyes.

Look people in the face. Be gentle with them. They may yet havesomething beautiful to say. Listen to their dreams and desires withan open mind. Do not be judgmental. Who are you to criticize the

skys hueor the winds direction? Do not rush off or be brusque. You may be their only friend. Think about what they are saying.They want to be accepted and understood. This is a powerful truthof the human condition. Treat them as if you are standing besidethem at the altar. (I remember the day we exchanged our vows,reader) Never assume an enemy. Be humble, for they surelyknow more than you about many things. Compliment them. Ad-mire them. Invite them. Be genuine.

There are many miles above your mortal head, and in your own fewfeet of space, there are infinities upon infinities. You are a depthlesscontainer dipped into life that pours forth life forever. And Godwhispers gently into the fullness of you and cries mightily into theempty spaces of your being. You are a heaven into yourself, but youare not an angel. And you are a demon into yourself, but you are

not a sinner (I have never met a sinner). The soul in you is not athing of right or wrong. It is simply that which hopes and loves for-ever. Reader, hope and love are also in the fullness and emptinessof you. Hope is the liquid filling up your depthless expanses and


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love is the light dispelling your mysteries. Let your mouth alwayspour forth a new undying song. Let it be taken in great rivers by thecosmic stream and dropped tenderly into the ears of simple men and women everywhere. Let your eyes be opened to the planets andstars that halo your head. Why do you walk on the ground when somuch of you dances in paradise?

Ask yourself if you will live forever. You know the answer. Thereare more undiscovered places in the universe then there will ever bedays to find them, yet you sit idle in your house, worrying aboutsome triviality. Give up your empire of dirt; let your soul be your

crown and castle. Sit in the park on Sundays. Smell your wifesscented hair in the springtime. Explore the world. Take only whatyou can carry. The rest will happily be born by your mind, thatfaithful mighty servant. Set sail for your own exotic inner harbors.Let the crew parish in the gale it does not matter. On the deckyou will remain.

Reader:Spin me into your smooth tanned arms. Clap. I will dance withyou through the dawn; as long as the last star remains. I stephigher in the crescendo, swinging my arms toward the sky. Ourlaughter plunges into shadow beyond the moonlight. Lets takethe beach back to our suiteherehold my hand as we go!

Learn to discipline yourself, faithfully dedicating your mind to a task.Run, sing, write, or grow flowers. Spend an hour each day narrow-ing your thoughts, distilling the essence of the art, and refining yourperceptions. Do not move quickly. True mastery comes from con-stant reflection. Remember where you began and imagine whereyou will someday be. Study. Do not be narrow-minded or short-sighted. As in building a house, you must assimilate many diverse

things over time. Master the physical, the mental, and the emotionalperspectives. Never love or despise your art. Either will destroyyou in the end. Keep to the path. Persevere. When you have creat-


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ed something, appraise it with truthfulness and objectiveness. Mostimportantly, teach others what you have learned.

Many wise men have failed to answer the question, What am I todo with my life? Do not trouble yourself with it. Philosophies ma-terialize and dissolve like the morning mists. Society and govern-ments try to dictate how you should live, and why you should die.Always there are those who preach, desperate to change your ways.Look away. Let them criticize forever, filling your funeral proces-sion to the end of the earth if they must. Love is a philosophy untoitself. You hold the astrolabe and the compass; the skies have

cleared. All history, foresight, and destiny are within you already.You do not need a guide through the deep waters of your own har-bor! You are well armed and prepared. You are necessary and suf-ficient. That is enough.

Love is not a selfish thing one man can posses. Nothing in this world or the next can lay claim to the totality of Love. Can theocean be divided by striking it with a hammer? Can a tree be con-vinced to turn its canopy against its roots? If the earth were a wombyour neighbor would be your brother (what is the earth if it is not awomb?). Love is not kept in your heart. You are kept in the heartof Love. Beauty is not a lesser or greater thing because another canhold it. The truth is that every being is an open outstretched hand.Imagine the strength and beauty of the people carrying the Cosmos!

Your conscience, your guilt, your happiness, your intuition; these areall instruments of the One Soul. The One is in you and in me andwe cannot divide them, even at the cemetery.

It is shocking that the earths soul has chosen my fleeting voice tocarry its love poem aloft. Today I am the living wind that bears highthe seed and the song. Tomorrow I am the smooth gravestone sur-face good for contemplation. Grow, men and women - I beg you.


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Grow strong roots from the hardest ground if you must. Now your water can be drawn from a purer fount and your earth can beopened with the plough of a bold new philosophy.

Look how much further the horizon extends when your pockets arelight. Our souls are meant to roam and play. If you must be rich,do not forget those dreams you had when you were poor. They willremind you of who you really are, even in the parlor room. Youhave gone mad trying to buy this and that. Why? You can neverbuy what you really need. If given the choice, would you trade yourgilded house for a clean conscience? You are so eager sell the fresh

air for a full stomach that you never notice you are starving in farworse ways.

Whitmans answer: The grass on graves are orphaned children of the Central Mind.The plush cover of our wedding night. The outstretched fingers of

beautiful brides. The braided hair of the girl I. The smoothgreen hips of Father Nature. The luscious thrust tongues of Messi-ah.

There are many roads yet untaken, many places of unspeakablebeauty that you have yet to reach. Take the longest way home. Ex-

plore the rugged rutted trails of your own mind. Do not be so eagerto see your doorstep; you know what lies beyond it. You weremeant for the highest ground, but you will not find it in the neigh-borhood. Wind and wander in your life, your love, and in yourquest for understanding. Know that not everyone who wanders islost; I am proof of that. Through Zaire, Calcutta, Cuba, and Cor-regidor; walk until you understand the way of the road, until yoursoul walks the road forever

I dream an immense dream of creationof all beauty ever produced, ever lost.


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Look! Penumbra of a thousand curious souls, approaching;sweet valved orators, returning, reclaiming the pulpitpreaching the story of the coming and the going,of the maggots on the abattoir floor,of the white fluffed dandelions atop all graves,of the widowed mother wrapped carefully about her babe.

Yes; there were others under the jagged liquid starlighthalf light drawn thin from white vitreous embersconjuring astral shades, reckoning eternity, revealing;they had come to witness the conclusory remarksof this ruddy, earthy terminus; this denouement that is I;

A heavy, long, conversation of eyes;I stand unafraidknowing each of their names,knowing that I had been loved, and had loved in return,knowing I was rough, unshorn, exquisite, plenary,knowing the kiss given me in my manly prime

is given delicately elsewhere,

knowing the Day of Judgment is merely ornamentalthat I had been adjudged beautiful before the womb,

knowing the bedighted skies wash over methat the deluge will continue when I am gone,

knowing that bustling within me is more than blood and basal stuffit is all romantic stares, all careful trysts, all never-forgotten good-

byes,it is all merry friends gathering up kindling for the bonfires,all pious stacked forms lining the token churches,all brittled white bones in dark spaces, still arranged pleasantly,all excellent scholars who debate well the selfish biographies,all handsome men who fish ruggedly the mighty streams,all fresh-pressed dancing girls who brandish, and torment, and tame.

All awaiting my passing, awaiting far greater myreturn; robust, wild, freshly emergedfrom molten furnaced forges before Eden,

from all distant systems, known and unknownbirthed beyond the beyonds, and further yetexpunged, naked, squirming, from tight passagesrecast assuredly in affirmation of the cycle


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the cycle runs, the cycle flows, I swear.

Brocade of darkness, heavy hands sculpting me freshly;mortal ripeness achieved, beginning the metamorphosis.

I watch life expectantly, but not from a safe vantage. I am not an-other smooth-cheeked estimator of reality. I envelope the harshnessof all, I assume the great tragedies and chart the disappointments.No storm rages without me dancing beneath it. No bitter soul dies without me kneeling beside with a swift kiss. There is no life butthat I wish to live deeply and desperately. I deliberately challenge

failure with my best embrace. I am no prince among paupers; I amno priest of the blessed. I draw life into me like an inlet and spill lifeout in mighty rivers and swells. (I drench the parched uplands.)Always entering and leaving again; like the child at the door beforeshe turned and disappeared forever. Saviors speak to me of gifts forthe poor and the proper method of forgiveness. They tell me thepoplar tree will not tower over me in heaven still. But I do not lin-ger on the expectation of gods. I know there are men and women

everywhere who are weightless in the hand of love; who are goodbecause they are themselves and impenitent.

Practice indiscriminate giving. What do you own that would not bebetter served in anothers hands? Why do you insist on carrying somuch and for so long? There is a child in your town that has no

food or clothes remember that. Give your money away as easilyas you gained it. If you cannot, you have already perished. Knowthat you have lost nothing, even as you hand over your house keys.In fact, you cannot begin to comprehend how much you gained.Volunteer. Stand up. Collect your money and belongings and go tothe shelter. The memory of offering your favorite possession to onepenniless child will carry you through many dark nights. Does yourmessiah dine in a throne room? No. Nor does mine.

I combust in a mighty conflagration of souls, ignite this existence,and illuminate the universe. I sear your flesh with my fiery brand


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and claim you as my wandering minstrel. There is no dawn anddusk within this spirit! I am the sunshine forever and the happinessit brings forth forever. I commit myself to nothing and enfold thisnaked preamble into the greater work. This long novel sighs its lastword and surrenders quietly into self-imposed oblivion. I amMat-thewtoday. But tomorrow I am scattered seeds germinating on thefertile forest floor. I am unseen in many ways, for not all beautifulthings grow only in the light. What vague outline of a man do yousee standing before you? What ghost rises over this body that stilldraws breath? I assault life with wide smiles and unlimited laughter.I haul children onto my strong shoulders and dance beneath thesycamore tree. What plans I have made for the cosmos! What ex-cellent maps I have drawn to hope and love! Come before me and

stare into these apparitional eyes. Let loose your gold-leafed lipsatop this rough cheek. I will slowly run my gaze along the soft, sen-sitive places within your soul.

Open your eyes, traveler. Look! Why do you sleep as the rhodo-dendron blossom?

Reader:I have missed you from the moment you left. I plant a thou-sand silent kisses on your portrait, but still I sleep alone. Mybody aches for your embrace. Where are you? Come kiss me,drink from my eyes, and remind me of a dauntless thing called

Us.

As you wander the road, go out of your way to meet strangers. Forif you fear your neighbor, a part of you becomes a stranger withinyourself. Eat with them in their homes. Sit with them beside thefireplace, laugh with them, and explain what it is like where youcome from. Let them know that love is an incense you would bring

them forever if they were not already a radiance and a fragrance un-to themselves. If you see an act of kindness, strengthen it with yourown hand. If you see evil, strike it down like an avenging angel. Ifyou see sickness, sacrifice yourself to ensure life is not consumed by


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its own lengthening shadow. If you should perish in your quest, donot despair; there are processions of others following your heroicfootsteps.

Live life up to your nose, and as you sink into its churning waters,be confident you need only to put a foot down. Celebrate when thetime is right. There is nothing wrong with holding a bottle of winein each hand if you have just killed the despot. You will certainlyslay many of them before you set yourself free.

Love is the merging of materiel and spiritual, bearing final witness tothe carcass lying amid the flowers. Love translates and explains thedeepening meaning of this world, turning its folds out to glimmer inthe noon-day sun. It exchanges beauty for certainty, law for nature,and method for truth. Reaching deep into the minds of men, it isthe ambassador of unknown magnificent places, heralding the ap-proach of something we cannot comprehend. Love is the worship

of infinitys subtle imposition into the soul. It is the handmaiden ofcreation, sacrifice, and compassion. It holds you to your celestialroots, reminding you that everywhere about you are apocryphal no-tions of the sublime. It is the reflection of unexplored planes, eachthrowing a brilliant facet toward the Central Fire. It is the unendingeasel of the Creator Mind, offering token glimpses of the passage.Love is the redistribution of God.

Let your worries dissolve like night held before the rising sun. Fromworry, nothing can be gained; except discontent. Nothing can assailyou that is worth a single wrinkle in your brow. Your Herculeansweat will not rebuild Babylon, any more than your fear will makeyou a philosopher. What is to be will come to pass, regardless ofyour best objections. But this is good. Time was meant to pass, re-cording the creative meanderings of the river of life. You are the

culmination of all events in history, and your existence stands unop-posed at its brink. Believe in yourself!


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Somewhere in the highlands a man collects firewood. His beingnessis inseparably bound to yours. He is your soulmate, lover, andfriend. He completes you like a the gulf stream completes the

beach, misses you like the dry earth misses the dew, longs for youlike a prisoner longs for freedom. He will never disappoint you, andin his arms the kisses never cease. Together, you were meant todance and laugh forever, though around you friends pass away,mountains crumple, and the planets dissolve into dust.

There is only oneperfectperson in the world for you. You may nevermeet him or her, though you spend a thousand sleepless nights insearch. Does this disappoint you? Reflect on it. At this moment,there is an amazing soul walking somewhere outside your door.Perhaps my wife speaks Hindi and washes her clothes in a river tenthousand miles away. I will not cry. Some souls were never meantto be discovered. They are more beautiful because they exist butcannot be touched. The power of any ideal is the power of hope,and it is a precious fount.

Go search. Never give up.

Have faith in the power of your mind - to be sure, it has great faithin you. Nothing has effect unless you make it so. Thought is bornto drive action. On the strong shoulders of your mind, knowledgeevolves, empires rise, and the collective fate of humanity strides to-ward its polestar. Let your mind swell and break the levy, let it washclean the high peaks of your existence, and deposit your soul atop itsfertile delta. Mind is the perfect apparatus of dreaming, faithfullyendeavoring to make every man into something worthwhile, no mat-ter the cost.


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Reader:My heart shudders and blows in the gale. The thought of lovegained and lost becomes drums in the night. I have taken poi-son and set out for the hillside to die. That two souls should

wander the earth alone is tragic; there are so many festivals yetto enjoy. Where has your wonderful voice gone, and why can Istill hear it in the distance? Why? Why? Keep searching for methrough the wilderness of starry nights. I lie awake somewhere,waiting for you

All silently passing away. All drinking and cheering as they run fromthe frothing bulls. All secretly plotting the demise of the other.Holding a string in the wind, your soul soaring like a kite. Pavingroads for the machine of the universe. Carrying rocks that wereonce the Acropolis, certain of their ancient piety. Talking to her asthe night becomes morning, smelling her perfume. Watching thehorizon for the first sight of land. Remembering the day you walkedback into town, the journey complete. All the handsome men whodie face down in the mud. All the gorgeous girls jumping horses in

the springtime show. To sweat days and dream light-years, even asyou carry the casket.

Know that somewhere a girl is being kissed for the first time. Thatin a hospital room a young man is watching the sunrise through thewindow; that he knows it means something more. That the bodies

atop Mt. Everest still clutch their wedding rings. That a house is be-ing built in the ghetto. That somewhere a wife has just been giventhe news. That all that ever was is no more; that the seconds passceaselessly. That right now someone much like yourself feels thesame way. That there are never endings, only beginnings. That amillion dead people would give anything for what you have rightnow. That I am watching your every action with limitless expecta-tion and excitement. That your life is a powerful epic and a beauti-ful poem; that you are its fabled author.


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When you wake up, think of everything you have. When you go tobed, think of everything you have. You are richest man in the townif you count the last five seconds. Think about these things and putthem in the proper place: health, age, money, family, lovers, friends,

two feet, freedom, education, work, belonging, reason.

Long ago I raised anchor and set sail for the distant isles. Have youheard the stories of my voyage? Have you thought long about thegreater meaning of my disappearance? What is a mansvoyage but adefiant cry cast into the face of certain destruction? What is a life-time but a flute harmony played to tame that tempest inside Gods

soul? The stories of my death and awakening are true. There aremany deaths and awakenings along any untrod path, along any dan-gerous way.

There is much beauty to see if you are prepared to open your eyes.Begin by changing your world-view. Nothing can blind you if you

understand its position along the time-line of eternity and its pur-pose in the ritual of renewal. Your life is a flourishing garden; areyou content to waste it while the weeds overtake the blossoms?Sadness and despondence are not for you. The fireworks have be-gun. The drinks are being poured. The night is never dark for long.Go out and tell seven billion people that you love them with blood-shot eyes.

Cultivate a deep respect for Love as an ideal. Forget you werewronged, disliked, or sinned against. Live out your life like an artistbefore the easel; graspingforgiveness from the earths outstretchedhand. Witness beauty - paint truth.

Reader:Your kiss is like morning dew - wet and soft upon my lips. Letme dance behind you and press your hips gently against mine. Ido not know from where this love has been gathered. Perhaps


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all love is a note I sent to myself a thousand years ago to some-day open. How many love letters then have I sent toward to-day? How many beautiful men and women read my signaturenow with bated breath?

Have you estimated the age of the earth? Or calculated the milesfrom yourself to the farthest satellite? How long did it take to judgethe value of a sparrow? Of a dying child? Of eternity? Did youreckon the distance from your eye to your soul as easily as yourhand to your stomach? Have you forgotten the sound of the grow-ing leaf? Question how the finite becomes the infinite. Search for

how you too can take the path. It is said that the song of the uni-verses birth may be heard everywherelisten for it.

When you are angry think of all the better ways you could be usingyour time. When you are tired consider how lucky you are to beable to work hard (there are many who do not have the strength to

walk). When you are jealous think of what we take with us to thecemetery. When you are happy think of me. When you are in lovethink of what that is and how it came to be. You will find that loveis the final human victory. When you are ready to give up think ofwhat was accomplished by those who did not give up (the earth hasnot given up on you). When you are scared look in the mirror(there is something powerful there). When you are alone knowthere is no such thing as loneliness. You have never been alone. A

powerful vanguard surrounds you always, its members extending tothe farthest horizon.

Cut the ropes, break the bonds, and escape unhindered into thelight. Nothing can stop you but the fear you make for yourself. There has never been a crowd that can subdue you or a barrierstrong enough to keep you at bay. You are high water rushing over

the dam. You cannot be contained or measured by this world or thenext. Forget everything except this youare. Why fear? The sunrises and sets, the lovers die, the ruins of mankind fade into antiquityyou will remain.


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Children in the back yard. Mothers and fathers clapping proudly,expressing with smiles the depth of their mysterious union. Summerlight pouring over the dogwood, its flowers ablaze in the afternoonbreeze. It was there I felt the hand on my shoulder. Holding melike a rescued friend, asking my name. And the seasons pass and thechildren grow-up. Their beautiful parents fall asleep, never to re-turn. The dogwood blooms for the last time, its tired branches inexquisite denouement. The hand slips from my shoulder - our workcomplete. I too pass on.

Why are you always masquerading, and so poorly? Do the people who love you know who you really are? If you do nothing else,plumb the depths of the souls that surround you. Treat them as thenobility they are and accept them as unique extensions of the OneSoul. Keep their hopes and dreams as close, or closer, than yourown - it will help you explore even farther down your own road. In

the other room is the future of the race. Think what a few compli-ments could do for the friend in the next room. You are so certainthat all the kind words were meant for you. Go quickly!every soulis on stage today reading its lines. Listen. What is being admitted isennobling and inspiring.

Lift with your mind. Wonder with your heart. Dream with yourfeet.

The job remains incomplete. There is more to be done. Yes; thegrass is cut, the papers are filed, and the house is arranged. But youare still in disarray, as you have always been. Throw down your worries and return to the womb. This time, direct your efforts to

more meaningful things. You are not beyond help yet. There isnothing more important a man can do than gather up his own piec-es. Like an engineer building a bridge. Two footingsone in thisworld, one in the next. A mighty span to withstand wind, rain, and


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time. An angle of gentle repose, arching toward its centerpoint. Soa man assembles himself with his own labor. No coin is paid, andno crowd comes to admire. But the masterpiece at last is complet-ed, and the continents are united forever.

Reader:Again the other day, I dreamed I lay restless beside you, chokingup deep ponderous love through cloudy breathes, gasping, dry-ing my eyes with your scented hair. I dreamed you pressed yourfirm, excruciatingly real, body atop mine, disturbingly slow-lyoh Godhiding selfishly the sound of your pony-tail cas-

cading into pieces.

In the end, it is for you alone to understand your place in the Cycle -to wonder why the apple tree buds - why you yourself are a bud. Toknow the shimmering fragrant leaves as people, and lovers, andplanets. The rumors of the systemare true. Its colossal hand holds

the galaxy like a pebble in a stream. And every person is a tributaryto the ever-flowing stream; their cool waters pour into the ocean oflife; their essence becomes a drop on some distant shore.

I have more faith, you more religion. Pit your own divinity againstthe churchs cornerstone; struggle with clenched teeth to break it

free, collapsing the entire idea. There is no wiser holy book than theone recently discovered inside your head. Truth has many concep-tions and presentations in the world of man. Measure its rough pit-ted edges with the patience of a Lama, endeavoring to get the wholeof it, regardless of the season. A Man knows that many beatenpaths stretch to the horizon; that all the dogma in heaven cannotpave one step of his own journey. Go to the cities and hills preach-ing the New Word that love is unconditional, universal, and free;that to love completely is to become divine. Convert the masses,

even as they shut the furnace door. Institutions will crumble underthe weight of ages, but truth is born with every dawn.


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I sometimes dream of a new house; one where the cool breeze rush-es in through cracks in the walls, where starlight falls across the dirtfloor, painting it with ancient truer colors. A spacious house that

gives shelter without having to shut the door or sweep out the raft-ers. Where tales of adventure spark like cedar in the fireplace, andthe sweet spices of a thousand distant ports mingle with the familiarscent of pipe weed. Where men and women gather to rest and con-verse, travelers from every continent, stepping in from the gatheringstorm. I welcome them, take their staves, and bring them soupfrom the kettle.

Do not forget that I once held the cooler and helped pulled the ca-noe onto dry land; that I lit the ceremonial torch and gave a goodspeech about life around the fire-circle; that I sat with you on thecouch while the sun rose and watched breathless as you displayedyour Olympic medals; that I once cried in the night because my onetrue love had left forever that I knew the end had come and Icould not be repaired; that the summer nights in Ellicott City had at

last become legendary and complete in my mind (Reader do youhave one amazing memory where you can remain endless and per-fect?); that the time I spent running after my nephew with a watergun was so well spent it became eternal; that I will someday returnand fall in love for the first and last time and it will be beautifuland very simple, like a soft rain after a long drought. I will dissipateand erode like dust in a deluge! I am not sad about this final sen-tence! I am not a cavern or midnight without light! Long have I

courted this hopeless yet extraordinary notion of love! What sunsetsI wish for my wife! What bottles of champagne and starlit nights Iconjure for the one who will someday find me!

Be gentle with the hearts of others. Think about what you are aboutto do or say. It may be that the stranger next to you is faced withmany great obstacles. A friend and confidant has entrusted you with

invaluable things. Your mother and father see a spark in you. I see amany sparks in you.


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Reader:I hug you tightly, pulling your body into the air, spinning youunder the sycamore. I am so glad you have returned. Let me

see your picturesWait! I forgot to tell you how beautiful youstill are. To be without you, without your reassuring laugh, wasfor a day to seem like eternity. Come inside, you must be tired; Ihave your favorite dinner set out for you.

To be a childTo be assimilated into the One Mind; to bejewel its crown with vi-

tality. To drown all great tragedies in the deep waters of total ac-ceptance; assured by its aura of peace. Measuring your age by theheight of the seedling, believing it will grow forever. Trusting thequestions more than the answers; knowing that the answers are real-ly unimportant. Holding the dead mouse softly between tiny fin-gers, stroking it with uncertain expectation. Giving hugs and kisseswith wild abandon, offering them purely and without regret. Open-ing eyes for the first time; having no preconceptions of what lies

ahead or behind; seeing no reflections or shadows; never squintingin the light. Never doubting what nature has organized; being newlyaware that our lives are very small in the Cycle. Capturing butterfliesand setting them free; knowing that each of us has been held and setfree. Knowing nothing worthwhile can be kept forever; that tocherish and let go is beautiful and just.

Three ways to look at life: As a prison sentence. As a long toil bro-ken briefly by pleasure or pain. As a never-ending celebration ofmerging and oneness.

And the darkening form of the sun sankAnd the purple shroud fell and deepened there

As if the dream world came and went, the new lovers appearedAnd romped and frolicked at the trunk of the tree of starsAs so produced were we, precious stones of aNew rift in the seam of things


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new forest, no less grand than the one above, shades my face. Un-convinced, I journey deeper still, intent to drink at the truth from itssource. Resting, I crouch beneath a grain of sand; day-old grassesrise like towers in the sky and a ray of sunlight becomes the vastfirmament. Further and further I travel - the world about me alwayslarge, complex, and unimpressable by my alien feet. I watch atomstwist and morph, their forms altering to the melody of some un-heard cord. I become a visitor to dimensions and spaces ancientlyfounded; mother to the laws of nature, and in turn, the universe her-self. But still my journey continues - until at last, the small and thelarge, the near and the far, the end and the beginning are seen forwhat they really areone.

Reader:I lay your body softly in the grave, remembering everything yousaid about life. There are no good words for what has happenedhere. I smooth the cool dirt over your body. It tumbles easilyover your lips; your arms, crossed pleasantly, disappear. Andhere you will remain, until, in a thousand millennia, the grasses

will part, the earth will be washed away, and the sunlight willonce again dance across your face. This is why I have set youhere on the hill, in the sun, where the lilacs and persimmon treesgrow. Here you may bless the earth, and it may serenade youforever. Because I am certain that what is hidden from sight isnot dead; just as deep inside the ancient poplar tree are storedup a hundred years of heartwood. Do you remember the day we were married? Do you remember what I promised you at

the altar? But God is a better companion for your new journey,as he has always been, though we often forget. I will make yourbed and water the plants; dont worry about the children. I loveyou so very muchandbefore I gotake this note.

Today, I promise, I will stand . forever by your side.I promise I will love you, cherish and confideall the hopes and thoughts and fleeting caresthat in our lives we dream or dare.

Today, I promise, in your eyes will shinemy moonlit memories of the sweetest timesthe endless days Id dream awake


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that all the moments of my life youd take.To grant me your peace, and free my soulto raise divine, and love bestow.

Atop the highest mountain peakswhere summer sunshine and August meetto forests green in far off places, and a thousand oceanswarm embraces.Ill go to tell the world my story, that in my life my onlygloryis you my friend my single joy, my hope to come, myway to findmy life to live in happiness, the only one that I have

missed.I love you more each day you see, so listen closely andbelieveand walk my way if you will be the only one to carry meand hold me close and marry me..and well never be apart again.

Now is the time to see people in courageous, bold ways. Be a per-son of great class who sees no class. Hold yourself to a higherstandard than you require of others.

Every man is a rock beneath some loftier structure; his own lifetimewritten as a preface to the Tome of Great Souls. A newer, better,and more noble breed of men will one day come. Courtiers of theearth, truth-seekers, walkers of long roads, sent to fulfill the ancientprophecies; demanding the return of lost loves, an opening ofgraves, an accounting of journeys taken and untaken. They come toliberate and equate; positing their colossal souls against the unop-posed order. Warriors of a celestial army, holding the streets of anew enlightened state; surrounded by its cheering populace. Againstevery injustice a champion will rise; shield poised, sword ready. And

the battle will rage across the nations, until the kings privileges arerepaid, the palace finery is torn down, and the riches of the earth arereturned to its people.


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Be careful with your aspirations and the places you take them. Im-agine yourself as the apostle of the possible; a warrior of self-

actualization. Not despairdetermination. Not sorrowstrength.No one has ever been more capable than you are now. There is nobetter time than now and no better person than you. There is somuch goodness remaining for you to accomplish. Begin by makingyour way to the farthest reaches of the mines within your soul.Throw yourself in. You are the raw materials of a future greatnessyou are only beginning to comprehend.

The first chapter is now complete, reader, and in it I have told youmuch about yourself. Now let me tell you more about me, moreabout the places I have searched in my ever deepening desire toknow you. I give you my story in the first-person, as all great storiesmust be. It is the story of an unbound mind that lives by a higherauthority. It is the saga of a life lived and loved to its supreme con-clusion. You will see that I celebrate at all graduations and funerals.

And I sob at all weddings and christenings. And I cast myself hap-pily into the darkest waters and hope I will bring good luck to fish-erman. I think my existence is only kindling for the watch fires thatwill one day awaken the love of the world. My smile and easy ac-ceptance of strangers is a wonderful pretext to set a dinner table forall people everywhere. I have wandered all white seashores laced with lovers and secretly wished I were warm inside your arms. Ihave purchased love until I was destitute, but could think of no bet-

ter way to buy my freedom. Their can be no providence exceptwhat the human heart creates. There is no right or wrong but whatthe strong will of love enjoys.


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BOOKII

FARTHEST REACHES


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Nothing is that is not beautiful; as no leaf grows that is not determined

by some greater fate.


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Reader:There is so much that remains to be said. I have not told you

why the oak and the elm refuse to grow in each others light. Ihave not commented on the distance a man must travel beforehe finds his own portrait in the locket of God. I have yet toconfide to you that the missing fragments of Lifes shatteredheart have never really been lost (you are proof of that). Butthis rough voice was crafted for more beautiful revelations. Letme confess to you the truth of the sacred fire that consumes andthe growing presence that creates. Give me time to explain thewide arms that plentifully hug the continents and solar systems.Let me knead you lovingly with my hands and press you withmy feet. From your body I will bake good bread and draw goodwine. But from your soul I will distill a far sweeter sustenance.

I have not forgotten that evening we spent together, making love inthe firetower atop Mount Cammerer. I have returned to pick you

out and dance until the evermore fades and the last awe-struck spec-tator retires. I go onto the public highways of the world, mad, inlusty passion with tonight. Myself, a beggar and a king. My love, aseedling and a galaxy. Gather round, my midnight friends, I haveseen the best of times; now I offer them to you. I will carry yoursoul into the hills, so you too may see the city lights.

And the gorgeous people huddled round the bar; and the drinks

were poured; the mystery of the song related to all. What fabulousgirl did you meet tonight? What remarkable secrets did she have totell? Is the story of the young man true? Was he killed while strug-gling with the demons that surrounded you; raising his torch in thenight; his torch-soul himself, swallowing his last breath freely? I willdispel the rumors; yes it was my laughter coming from your bed-room last night. Keep searching for me at the festival. On thetopmost balcony; screaming at the sky; mad to be, like everyonewho has ever thrown beads or passed by topless in the parade.

The creek flows, the morning comes; the great people raise theirbeautiful heads from the pillow. Nothing is that is not beautiful; asno leaf grows that is not determined by some greater fate. I am the


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end of the end, and the beginning of the beginning. I become whatcan be. I become what has faded from grace. I justify the night,and its starlight justifies the illumination inside me. Precious beach,precious ocean, precious people gone inside the waters, I have neverdoubted you. I have, in the final hours, believed in you, as the nightbelieves in day, as assuredly the Great Souls will come, as all fear,sadness, and weakness will be forgotten, as the boy in the cancerward will one day stand and disappear, as the father, forgotten by hischild, will find solace in a penitent voice. And everything that everwas and will be has found a friend in me. I will never be the drivingrain on the road, holding back travelers. I cannot fathom a tomor-row without the adventuresome souls, without the sound of feetagainst pavement.

I see a million amazing minds; burning, burning like prophets laugh-ing in the furnace. In the distance I see it growing; the conflagrationthat will end the earth. But one man comes; the warrior of thedawn. Dousing flame with flame, his soul set against the blaze.

My love; kiss me. Hold me as the tree clenches the fertile ground.Incredible you are, as the trillion gemstones above my nighttime

head. I am so small in the arrangement of the world. I go. I come. Transient; wandering; free. I should be angry at my poverty; Ishould denounce the politicians; I should watch the time; but in-stead, I cry at the sight of dew on the tender petal of the posy; I fall,powerless, at the thought of choruses signing anthems in the park. Ihave seen the immense light around you. I have thought about itevery day since I was born. What does the light whisper? Whatdoes it mean? Sit beside me. I love you. I will never doubt, or se-cond-guess, or fail you. I will stay with you through the longestpainful death. I am yours forever. My lifetake it now; there willnever be a finer moment to clutch my neck and plant a final kiss.

But even the greatest memories are only early scenes in the passionplay of the earth. Amazing people everywhere falling in love, beingnoble, lifting spirits, catching and riding the wave, hoping it willnever end; all of it. From early in the morning, when the yoke ofnature bursts; to late in the day, when the sun passes beneath its

zenithI will sing to the flowers; and dance in the rain; I will chartunknown lands like the day they were raised up from the sea; I willclap at your dancing feet and stare at your beauty. For indeed, thebest souls have yet to come; but even now, I faintly hear their foot-


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steps on the wandering paths, and in the awakening breeze. Neverhas someone so amazing been born. My gorgeous love; you are tru-ly incredible. What you will someday do is beyond the greatestwords. My hope is renewed, my faith restored; the day has yet todawn on this land.

I have sat on the highest hill and wondered about you; have thoughtabout your name. Readerthere was once an old man who saw thenorthern lights; who thought they were the premonition of somecoming messiah. He has been told of the simple men and womenthat sit beside the river, drinking beer and remarking on the way ofthings. Why me, if you? I would gladly cut down myself to give youa chance to thrive in the light. I am the shadow of the eclipse; you

are the fireworks above the childrens heads. And yet I have ex-plained nothing with these poor, hollow words of mine. I wish totell you of my experiment; to give you some slight hint of what theendless holds in its palm. I have lived and died. I have wrote andthought. I have loved deeply and immensely, taking the hand of theugly, and the rebuked; his or her soul cast back into the waters.Give up everything you have so courageously gained, I will turn thespoils over to the young girl in the cemetery; today she has lost her

parents. There has never been a boy or girl I have not applaudedwith unfettered excitement. Now take up my journal and my pack;what miles they have seen will inspire you.

And you think all the poets are gone. You believe you will save theearth. But everything you have heard is false, only the unknown,tragic souls have any effect. And you think you are the most beauti-ful; the most blest; the bravest. But even now, there are a few whodrink at the fountain of truth from its ever-flowing source. A fewwho have journeyed from this dawn till that to find where it comestrickling from the headwaters of God. Let me be in that company,making congress with the whisperers. There has never been a manwho sees truly and purely. The only Men were killed in the war be-tween life and death; their souls smelted spectacularly in the crucibleof fallen heroes; their flesh reformed.

You are the storied warrior of an oppressed people; I have been told

of your coming. I will hold your breastplate, and fit your scabbard.The hoard is gathering outside the castle gates; there is no more timefor prayers! Let loose the doors! I will charge to my death to de-fend you! Let my story be written in the halls of the ancients, and


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painted on the ceilings of the lovers chapels. All blood eventuallyflows to the grass, and all grass is in turn fashioned into tears, andmen, and planets. My last stand will become the stories told to yourchildren beside the firelight. I will become the hailed hero and thepitied corpse. And I do this all for you.

Remove yourself from the cacophony. The screaming bigots, theraging dissenters, the hateful. All you have to do is believe in thepower of your own unrelenting self. Walk without fear. Venture in-to the feted marshes, cross the frozen ranges, and return by un-mapped passages in your mind. Nothing can bend a man who has

made the hardest journeytreading through dangerous places with-in himself.

Why do you forget who you are and question how long you willlive? What is a thousand years of tomorrow compared to one se-cond of today? You are the greatest culmination of the chapters of

man, yet you are still a hollow approximation of what you could be.The earth has flourished only for you; the vines have grown and themountains peaked, the rivers swelled, and the fruits ripened. Andhow have you repaid them?

Reader:I told you everything about me in the early morning, when ourfriends had gone and the silence seemed right. You said the world is a bedroom and all touches everywhere are proof ofGod. I admitted that I love and love and love until I am con-sumed by it. Perhaps my lips on yours will convert a few newbelievers. I said that eternity was designed to give people timeto meet and collapse atop the wide wings of fate. But I thinkyou had already fallen asleep and forgotten about my crazy un-thinkable dreams


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To accept what has come to pass. To know your only job is to nav-igate nature with courage. To not be embarrassed by yesterday orafraid of tomorrow. To meet the next moment handsomely with aknotted brow and a firm-set jaw. To know that a thousand other

people, faced with the same challenge, would not have been so cou-rageous.

I tell you there is no eternity but that you dwell there and no petalwhite enough to honor itself better. And I reckon no longer whatbeauty means or disbelieve that a portrait of God still exists. Yourhair is a shroud mystifying undreamt relics. Your eyes are dangerous

nights pebbly with stars. You laugh easily but cannot explain whyyou smile. And you love easily but dare not follow it down. Thebeginning and end are inside you, but you want them not. The an-swer is obvious, but it never troubled you. You think all handsomemen are only boys who are careless with innocent hearts. There isno fate large enough to plot your direction or soul swift enough totrack your course. But when the others leave, you will remain withyour uncommon perfections. And when the troubled waters part

you will be standing on the opposite shore.

Everywhere I look I see people in their fetal state. A hand, an ear,an eyebut never aperson. Some just beginning to mature, and oth-ers, sadly, yet to be conceived. But lo! There is more evolution tocome! When the proper time arrives, the shell will be cracked, a first

breath will be taken, and a new and more stunning creature, neverbefore seen, will soar across this land.

Attend to your life like a watchmaker. Perfect your own tiny gear. Watch it carefully contribute to the mighty clockwork of the uni-verse.

Your life will change when you see every person as a companionrather than a stranger; when old age appears warm and welcome,


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when tomorrow becomes a beautiful rebirth. Dispatch with anger,jealousy, hate, and pride. These emotions are unfit for you. Thinkdifferently; reinvent yourself; summit the mountain, and set foot insacred unexplored shrines. Practice seeing people as amazing exten-sions of the One Soul. Float atop the currents, plunge into theswells, and circle the eddies of life. Become an immense lidless eye,unencumbered, a vessel for all of things, absorbing the vast array ofwonderful things about you.

Reader:I hasten toward your bedroom, in search. There you lie, twisted

and spent; nearly lost. But no. My kiss is fast coming. Myarms, rough, strong, embrace you; pluck you from wideningplaces, dark and noiseless, from solitary travels, bleak crossings,denying Charon. You shall not go hence tonight! My men havetheir positions behind braced arms, shuttered windows, vigilanteyes. The Oneis being questioned at the door. We shall resist to-gether!

See nothing but the best in people. Their weaknesses and failuresbeauty. Their resentment and treacherybeauty. How great theirlove and simplicity then appears. What is beyond our vision isdarkness to us. Beauty alone can perceive beauty, for the nature in-side all divine things communes with a tongue we cannot speak.

Carpet of my endless sonnet. Soft white sheets of my total solitude.Sitting beside the woodsmen, discussing Homer, questioning thenew fictions. On the final day, will you display your sadness to theearth; dropping tears, like jewels, from glistening cheeks? Hearingthe whisper of pleasant coffins covered in mums. Drinking the un-charted seas beneath a billion feet. Lying with my wife on the lus-cious cover of ancient kings, kissing her as the moonrise paints it

with figures. The grass that was once lovers and poets. The grassthat was once me.


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Think about the world around you. The tall gleaming buildings,vaulting mankind into the clouds. The dim, tree-choked marshlandsin the evening, filled with the croaking of frogs. The shelves of the

inner-city library, imbuing beautiful young minds with hope. Thethatched huts, lined against the wind, the naked hunters returning with the kill. Every sad moment when something was born dead,where life had once been kept, but escaped. (Do not worry, it willreturn.) The captain rallying the heroic crew, the storm raging, theship nearly lost. The moment the first breeze spreads across the is-land, muffling the sound of the banana tree dropping its fruit. Theweeping woman on the park bench, her body crumpled; a namelessfigure amidst pigeons. The crimson stones of the desert, sacred

ground, where the four ancient winds go to die. The rice thrown,the bride and groom running in close precession, planting kisses with their eyes. All of it right in front of you; your world; whereyour mother and father and their mother and father were raised anddied. A tiny speck in the eye of God. A never-known corner in theleast of the rooms of the universe. But it is all you have and it isgood. Dwell in the glory.

Right now. This moment. Begin dealing with yourself like a new-found friend. Help yourself learn; taking account of what is known,and what has yet to be discovered. Dig down to the deepest, richestpart of your being and place a seed. Walk hand-in-hand with your-self in the morning, beneath the bluebird and the white oak. Wakeup and look at yourself with awe, amazed at what has risen from its

slumber. Keep yourself close and defend yourself when you must,there are many who would steal away such beauty. And when youpass from this earth, do not be alarmed or saddened; there are manyfriends that will remain.

Let me be, but if I cannot be, let me be passionate in the attempt.

The street crowded with beggars and mothers and businessmenThe loath exile setting forth from the tribe forever


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Young ladies in the bakery, reciting their ordersThe fans roaring unexpectedly inside the tavernCigar smoke curled and exposed to the winter skyThe pretty cast taking their proper placesTheaters of people on the stages of the EarthBeaches of lovers taken back out to seaYou are all like me, whether or not you admit itAnd I inform you that what you are looking for is not experienceBut understandingNot the taste of the fruit, but the age of the treeYes; I know you far better than you are comfortable withI love to hear the complicated poets express the birth of the grassThe throes of the pavement

I sink to the earth and decayand grow lovelier stillI still hear the voices shout all around me, above meTrying to unravel me

Nothing has been given to me that I did not already possess. Thewildflowers having earlier been offered by a lover, the waterfall sentas a gift, and the vista, reaching to the horizon, devised to me by awealthy, venerable friend. All mine. To cherish from many angles,to love well and completely, as anything worthwhile must be. Butnever to hold. To catch and release, until at length, a younger, bet-ter, and more perfect soul pulls it proudly forth from the cold springwaters of tomorrow.

Taking only what is good; leaving the rest. I saw the disabled girlsmile; saw how she tipped her head as she crossed the finish line.And so I will take it with me. Like a talisman held against the night,like a strong anchor cast in the tempest. Me; the richest possessorof all beautiful thoughts, of all bold events, of all triumphs of the weak over the strong. I would liberate the dandelions if I could,spreading the beginnings of something more glorious into the

breeze. When I make passage, no one will be left behind; not a sin-gle brave soul screaming in the distance; waving frantically from be-hind the mists (you know of the mists I speak). I will search out the


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unloved, the sick, and the rejected; will pack their luggage with thebest times; will ask them to leave all else behind.

You. Creature of flesh and water. Ash animated. The avatar ofmulch and sunlight. Your forefathersrock, fire, earth, beast. Butalso something more something bigger, something I have yet tounderstand. I saw how you helped the old man who had fallen, sawhow you smiled and handed him his cane. Yes. Much more to un-derstand.

Doing what with my time here? Applauding the leaves driftingaround walking feet. Singing songs to the gathered creatures, offer-ing my love in a melody they can better understand. Climbing theancient oak, examining the setting sun, questioning where the pathleads and where it began. Filling my most lonely days with thesounds of the playground, with the voices of the recently arrived,the first-gasped breath of the Creator. Walking up the stairs of the

gallows, overjoyed, watching as you are set free. Rolling rocks intothe creek, trying to damn up the water; realizing that, like ourselves,the flow can never be subdued. Standing in a noisy room, remem-bering the dying tree on the hill, all lit up with morning light; deaf tothe hum of other, lesser, conversations. Sitting on the edge of thebed, contemplating what has yet to come, and what has passed; wondering what it was carefully designed to mean. Sitting besideyou as you read this book, waiting patiently, guessing where you had

traveled, and by what path you had returned.

Try harder. Do, because through doing, you develop yourself. Pushthe outer limits of your lifetime, working to make every day a victoryfor the human race. Fight for the reason you exist. Fight for theprivilege of occupation, of making things happen with your tiny,mortal hands. Make every job a sacrifice for someone else. Strike

with your life like a pickaxe against stone, seeking a firmer, surerfooting for the climbers below. Even the greatest accomplishmentsare not immediately seen for what they are; so expect no thanks. In-stead, draw your pay from the households of the world, from the


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men and women that will someday stand upon your tired shoulders.Rejoice; for the completion of every task, no matter how trivial, as-sures nobler employment for us all.

There is a community behind every one of us. There we make ourroots, and there we make our sky. I was born on a city block filledwith hope, a school, and an American dream. Give back what youhave taken, sacrificing yourself to perpetuate the children down theblock. They will someday become you; do not forget that. Volun-teer. Go to your neighbors door and recommend yourself for thejob.

My elegant friend under the rotunda, posing in the evening. I can-not believe Im standing here, appraising the jewelry in your eyes.Do not worry; I will be very careful with your porcelain cheeks andgentle with your fragile lashes. Do you know how easy it would beto pour another drink and listen to you talk forever? But even then,

I would know nothing of the wilderness that is you. I could happilydrink your tongue, gasp, and be drowned by your liquid soul. Itwould not be the end of me, I swear. Did I tell you how fascinatedI am with you; with everything you will one day become? Did Ihappen to say I would marry you today if you asked?

Wake up and begin living with abandon. Let your hubris shine like aspectacular meteor above the speechless doubting masses. Everybad moment or tragedy has already been repaid with unimaginablekindness. For this hastily planned journey of life you have beenequipped with a new body and an ancient soul. They are all the luckyou need. Every person met, every word tradedamazing. All thedays lost in the wilderness that surrounds you, counting the planetsbefore they disappear, knowing you are their rightful owner. I can-not forget that we shared a single day on the river; that the fish were

well-grown and the shores lush.


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Reader:I married you because of the way you resemble Tiffany in theevening light. I love you for the battles you fought and won, forthe struggles you lost but easily laughed away. I wrote all this to

explain the way I daydream of you and draw pictures of you inthe sand. Let me explain my appetite and my thirst. Let melightly describe the distance from your lips to mine and expressin sweet words the completeness of your beauty.

No. It is no lie. I have waited lifetimes for your coming. Now Ioffer up everything to you. Having heard your laugh, I will happily

diminish forever. I cannot in words explain your new role in thisfascinating thing called Life. All I know is your return has been ru-mored for an eon; that the people round the evening fire have al-ready told your legends. Thank you so much for your gentle wordsand easy smile. I was unsure of divinity before you came. Now Imust go and find the child that will one day take your place.

My unforgettable lover, hair flowing wild in the sundown breeze. Iwas about to ask you to marry my soul. But even marriage is unfitfor what we have between us. Have you ever laughed as the floorburned or got chills at the thought of the thunderstorm aroundmidnight? Thats how I feel when we kiss, when I taste champagneon your lips and wonder what you are thinking. Lets get a coverand drive into the country. I will hold you under the night sky, let-

ting down your ponytails, pointing out planets and constellations.Because everything beautiful is yours anyway. I will show you thatthere are also starry nights inside you; that the clearest, crispest,most gorgeous skies are just opening over you.

Leaving everything behind. Leaving life no differently than thefront door. Knowing the cemetery is only a Gibraltar to biggerplaces. Always listening for the sound of the Archangels horn, forchurch bells, for taps playing in the autumn evening. Unfound butnever lost. Pulling back vines to see the ruins of a finer race.Knowing there are vines choking your best years too. Keeping track


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of who cannot be trusted; of those who have never wrapped a torch,thrown beads, or slung a canteen.

Who forgot that my fascination with you will never end, can neverend as long as I draw breath? Who wonders why I cannot sit still while the world teems and trembles, while the strip is lit up andbursting with people?

My best friends, my trusted allies, my wonderful escorts into theopen air. Freeing me with your tireless capacity to burn, burn, burn;like the sun shining through the nursery the day I was born. I amthe one that brought you flowers, who offered up his best compli-ment, who ran up to hug you at the station. I would write more if I werent so busy remembering how good you looked last night.Come, walk with me. I will tell you how much I enjoy loving you

Yesterday you saw me carefully arranging leaves on the sidewalk, butyou did not begin to understand my plan. Blowing. Blowing. Us.Them. Me. You. Forever. Each a misunderstood shard lost in thecurrents of time.

Reader:You are nearly gone. The cancer has found and consumed you.

Your voice is drifting far away now. Why do you laugh when Isay life is not a fire quenchable by its own hand? Why do youdoubt when I say we will kiss again soon in a fairer land? Sit be-side me; place your head on my lap. I will gently remind you ofthe best times. Tell me again about the first moment we metabout our first kiss. Yesit was your gorgeous brown eyes thatdrove me mad.


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I will describe to you what I saw. From far away there was a lightaround you, as if divinity had taken eternity and forged it into some-thing hotter, purer, and more beautiful. I stood straight and proudas you bowed beneath the sword; I saluted as your heroic deeds

were pronounced to the crowd. I saw you handing out meals to thepoor; offering up a smile and a laugh like they were something free.But nothing can compare to the sight of you dancing in the evening,giving away what cannot yet be comprehended. I know that you willnever believe me. But to believe is not a prerequisite for what I amabout to say. I witnessed you in the fiery Absalon that is this world.I never imagined how overwhelmed I would feel when I was firstexposed to your colossal soul. But the light burns even brighterthan you thought. The light around you I mean. The light in every

second that is you, scorching, a premonition of the spectacularshower that will one day be known as the awakening and the rage. Ihave sat for a thousand lifetimes considering how I would say this You are more beautiful than you think. My amazing friend thatbejewels this life; question, seek, and wander. Never take time toworry about me; I will be fineI swear. For long ago I died andwas reborn. Yes. I was the first man to trust in the story of the Cy-cle. I alone shuddered when it was told. I was laughing on the

white sand beaches before your parents began. They spoke to meabout the moment you were conceived; confided that you weresomething very necessary in the plan of things. And even now, theplan has just begun to take effect. Now go. I will tell the othersabout what I have seen here. I will place our last picture on the walland kiss it daily in my heavens chambers. I will search for anotherYoualways.

No. I did not feel a single moment of despair. Impossible you say,but it is not so irreverent for me to show this machismo. I waiteduntil your heart stopped before I finally left the hospital. I did notlook back. You had whispered something before you passed away;but I thought it sounded only like riffles on the passing river, like anunfurled sail in a fleeting wind. I will mourn for the people whonever fall madly in love; the ones who wait patiently beside your bed

but leave just as you awaken.


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Love by expecting nothing in return. Love by remembering why itis you are here. Love by looking up at the sky and questioning itsimportance in a scheme you cannot understand. Love by kneelingbefore the powerless. Love by showing you are made of undiscov-

ered elemental forces. Love by proving the most beautiful storiestrue. Love by destroying injustices and righting wrongs. Love bynight. Love by day. Love by understanding the way of the Cycle.Love by your dreams and your innocence. Love by the final se-conds of your astonishing life. Love by giving everything to the ba-by that will someday be born. Love by the incense on the kitchentable, surrounded by friends. Love by extremes. Love by coura-geous principles. Love by a fundamental intuition of the eternal na-ture of all things. Love by the river-side fire circles and the freshly

broken camps. Love by the gravesites. Love by the long untakenpaths. Love by exponential powers. Love by the singular effort ofyour amazing mind. Love by the unfathomable reaches of your un-celebrated soul. Love by the way you look at them. Love by thechildren, and fathers, and mothers. Love by holding a ceremony forthe rejected and forgotten. Love by not forgetting a single name.Love by kissing the bodies piled high on the pyre. Love by kissingyour child and helping her write a poem. Love by leaving no note

of explanation in your empty room. Love by writing a guidebookfor the souls who will one day come. Love by living passionatelyand never forgetting the reason it all burns and flows. Love byshowing unknown courage in the face of certain death. Love by be-coming a mighty enforcer of the unwritten laws. Love by necessity.Love by sheer desire to become something greater. Love because itis beautiful to exist.

Returning from the fields, a man knelt down and healed you,showed you how to see things freshly with your incomplete eyes.He said your soul was a tender sprout, that he was a gardener, thathe had walked from distant places to see you. Forgotten heroes,young mothers overjoyed, laborers under the portending suns ofthis lonely earthI will kneel beside you too. I will also try to per-form miracles with these tired broken hands. I appear today bril-

liant before you all; that you may run to the streets shouting signs ofa new hope. Exciting prophesies have been rumored again, like tab-lets from an ark anciently buried. I arrive garbed not in red or pur-ple, but surrounded by the rugged songs of the woodsman and the


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rain, swaddled in the stars and scattered brine of the waxing universe, crowned by all history, bravery, and laughter. I bring undermy left arm a mothers love and a fathers courage, under my rightarm the scroll of a colossal poem that will grow throughout eternity.I know I am nothing more than the hair on the backs of paupersnecks and the batted feathers on the wings of ravens. But I am alsoa strand in the fabric of the unseen and the unknowable. I am noth-ing if I am not you and the rest. I drink from the swelled streamsand sup with the plentiful earth. I kiss the celestial forms as theytravel ever onward. I am never hungry while they exist.

I am limitless cacophony and resounding noise. I take my place atthe helm of the band, their wild plums and crashing symbols bodepoorly for the disbelievers. I open a place for you in the swellingranks. There is great rejoicing, for your fellowship has been ex-pected for eras beyond this earth. With a drum and pipe song I leadonward to the distant horizon. Listen, you citizens of a better fate!The sounds of sorrow and death are drowned out by the raging clapof marching feet, by the melodies of a million mad souls rising to

crescendo! The moans of the sick are dispelled, and their strength isbuoyed. The swarming flies are swept off the bodies, their flesh isremade; the guardians are reawakened. And I stand as witness to aprocession undreamt, to endless columns of souls walking to adeepening rhythm

I am certain there are many more lives to be grown. They aregrapes hanging anxiously from the vine of eternity. Lifetimesheaped up and torn down, swept away, the roaring performances offishermen and ploughmen and poets. I am not the end; no more sothan I am the beginning. There can be no terminus unless I make itso. I saw your face as the dust powdered your hands; I wonderedwhat you were thinking. I hasten to inform you the dust is men andwoman in a new form, elemental, compact, free.

Grand thinkers, I give you a new redemptive theory of everything. Ispeak no longer of the old, worn ways of men and their things. Theriddles will give way to the inalienable truth. What I am about to saycan only be heard by those who never yawn. The kisses lustily


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planted were not emblematic of this failing murdered world. Theywere the first opened windows of forever, displaying the permanentdesign. A virgin glimpse has been given to the martyrs, as tonguesof flame consumed their hearts. Now I have gathered flowers togive to the newborn earth. I have filled my coffin with daffodils andtigerlillies and sent a terse word to gravediggers. Taps will no longerbe played beneath the setting sun and her parting ramparts. Foreveronward speak of me in free verse.

I cannot tell you how at peace I am with Death and God. (Reader,what are you at peace with? Have you seen what will come to pass?)

Death! Whom are your greedy ever-watchful eyes haunting? Whatbusiness have you in my house tonight? Have you bled the couragefrom the weak and now turn your talons upon my might? Oh beau-tiful men and women who are shield bearers of souls; I commandyou to rise and sunder this friendless thing!

The structure of the universe confirms the eternity at the core of mybeing. Wherever or whatever I may be, I shall be, as I am now, apower in the universal system of powers, a being in inconceivableharmony of some world of God.

Now wait a while here, reader. Pour yourself another drink and ex-plain everything slowly to me. Breathe lighter, relax, and confess tome the longing inside your soul. I can sit here forever absorbing thebareness and brilliance of you. Tell me again how the sun looks as itfalls softly into the ocean at dusk. Describe what it felt like to se-duce me on that orange-red beach. (Do you remember when wemade our promise and floated our love poem into the sea?) I havegathered together all moments where two people kissed; wheresomething beautiful flowered; where life spilled forth in torrents thatcould not be contained. Reader; express with your eyes the exotic

and simple inside you. I know you have wonderful things pent upwithin that essence! I know the romantic half-light cannot hide yourmost gorgeous reckless dreams! I am in love with every time youfelt overcome and exhausted by joy; when you appeared beautiful


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under a stormy sky. I fade and dissipatebut I never forget. Thereis no somber end or sad farewell to me! On my deathbed I willclutch all great events and relive them until the end. Someday I willcut loose this anchor and drift into my tide of perfect moments.Give me your wild laughter and your goose-bumps in the night!Here I spill forth the perfect and regretless of a giant existence!Here I hand back this body and display to you the vast collection ofmemories I have gained. Drink from this depthless soul forever! Take what you want from this immense plan! I search across alleternities, all universes, all lovely and desolate places, for the few se-conds where life outdoes itself; where I can dance late into the nightand bring you bouquets until the end.

I have witnessed the high tide of the soul; seen one man elope ro-mantically with a notion he can never really understand, never reallyconsummate with the flesh and madness given him at the beginning.The love-making purple moonlit nights did not wash over a corpse.I have taken them like good medicine, made them part of the super-nova that is me. When the nighttime ends and the sunlight comes, I

will be found in the gutter, alone, my shirt off, my mouth agape, myheart still spewing the beautiful stuff of lifetimes. Then, perhaps,the hesitant promenaders and spectators will finally understand. Iwill keep believing that I have come and gone before and will notdeny that this existence is the droppings of many better lifetimesand wondrous journeys.

Wayne D. Johnson, 59, Kansas City, MO, passed away July 17, 2003,at St. Joseph Health Center. Mass of Christian Burial will be 10 a.m. Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at Christ the King Church, 8510 WornallRd., Kansas City, MO 64114 Friends may call from 6-8 p.m. Mon-day, July 21, 2003, at the church, where a rosary will be said at 6:30p.m. Memorial contributions may be made to Boy Scout Troop #30,c/o Christ the King Church. Wayne was born November 23, 1943,in Kansas City, MO. He married Linda C. Reams on Aug

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