Balance, Pause

Balance

The forest is a place of quiet

A place where you can’t hear the noise

Of constant voices and continual motion

A place where the only thing you can see

Is growth, with each layer of brush

Adding more and more and more

To the whole tableau of greenery

The forest is a place of noise

A place where there is unending life

The crackle of leaves kicked aside

By animals racing between the trunks

In some mad dash for who-knows-what

And even the very earth beneath your feet is alive

Churning insects kicking off the circle of life

Time and time again

The forest is a place of balance

Where seeds falling from the trees

Fall to the ground

And while some take hold

And others never grow old

Balance flourishes between every cell

---

Pause

Between silence and noise

Life and death

Taking bits and pieces of your chaos

And creating equilibrium

The ephemerality of morning dewdrops on a dandelion

One breath away from exploding onto the winds of time

Has me frozen in place, keeping my lungs from exhaling

For fear of bringing the insubstantial future into the fixed present

And destroying this moment in which I have found myself

We have all been told that nothing lasts forever

And yet I will find myself hoping that just this time

This short lived flower will hold just a bit longer

And stay glistening in the early morning light

With rainbows refracted in the thawing dew

This frozen moment too will soon thaw and disappear

Like smoke through my grasping fingers

But for now I hold my breath for just a little while longer

In a futile attempt to preserve this beauty that I have found

For as long as I am able