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