Instructions for this Life

There should be clear answers
But there are not,
There ought to be specific directions,
Instructions in a manual of how to operate
This vessel,
In this life,
But there are not,
No “How to”,
to be in different modes,
Different states of being,
In times of joy and great despair,
Instead, one is left with hearsay,
Lessons,
from others who have traveled,
Down their own paths,
This wisdom shared to guide in the unknown;
Herein lay the hope:
There is no one right track,
No one right way to traverse
This path you tread,
You lead;
It is unpaved,
Meant to be worn by this very trek,
Thereby shaped by you.

White Feather

A white feather,
From one of my ventures,
Resides on my vehicle dashboard,
The air through my windows on a hot day
Lifted and carried the feather
In flight,
As such things are meant to;
Scurrying to recapture my feather,
I am reminded
It was never mine,
It never grew from my body,
And yet now I hold to it
As if it were a part of me,
In a way, it is,
The remembrance of its coming to be with me,
And the miles,
Moments,
Mishaps and memories
I also collected with it present;
The feather,
Worn but white,
is a symbol
Of what I have been through,
Carried by the wind,
To always make a landing,
With grace,
Wherever I may descend.

Butterfly Returns

Butterfly went home
After their first flight;
Home to cocoons
And caterpillars,
Who each longed to know of their possible future,
But could not yet understand
What air beneath one’s wings
Could feel like,
Each at their own time to cocoon
Metamorphosis awaiting at their own pace,
In their own way;
Not all will get to fly
For some time is much shorter
But they all change,
They all in the end are freed
Of corporeal vessels
Of various form,
Even if they will never know
The flight of a butterfly,
They all may appreciate
The diversity in their shapes
And the cycle
That unites them all.

April Shower

Rain came,
With wind blowing in the cool mist,
The drops gently falling
To trace the contours of the dry land
Touching all in its midst;
Thirst is quenched,
If just for a day,
With this single spring shower;
Puddles collect within dimples of earth,
And slowly build,
Overflow,
And run freely as translucent ribbons,
Streams flowing,
Spreading,
Mixing necessary libations
Of and for life.

Toward a Happy Ending

I anticipated a winding road
For that is how my story often goes,
But something tells me
The next chapters
Are short and sweet,
But not lacking in their depth or content;
On a few pages more
There will be new revelations to find,
Hopes becoming truths,
And not just speculation
Nor just wishful thinking,
But manifestations of positive energy
Of karmic flow spiraling out
And being received,
By open hands
And open hearts,
To then be paid forward,
In this my tale,
Moving swiftly,
With the turning of pages
Toward a happy ending.