CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

  It's warmth and quiet captures your soul. Taking it to a peaceful place you've never known. The desert wants to learn about you, to hear your dreams.  If it likes your dreams, the desert may let you stay for awhile. If not, it will sweep you away. All the while reminding you, with sudden storms, it's watching.  (photograph "Desert Spirit" by Kathleen Young)

 

  We were deep into the seemingly unending hallways of the huge medical complex. The color of the walls, equipment and lighting subdued echoing the seriousness of the place. Other patients with masks walked by, not a glance. We stopped and looked out the window at the enormity of the complex around us. Without saying a word, we each knew our thoughts. We both felt small, out of place in this world that seemed Orwellian and almost apocalyptic. A world we would visit frequently over the next few months. The medical matrix revealed its insights slowly. The medical staff wore pandemic fatigue on their faces, but were professional to the end. Like the other patients around us, we seemed caught in time waiting for the next treatment or diagnosis. The medical profession is taught to “cure“ and dedicated to it. That cure though may come at a heavy price to your quality of life. Medical decisions all come down to your judgement in the end. You only hope for the best guides along the way....

  Words sharp as The crash of falling bricks Against the soft day of you. Gone once said, only Debris of what’s done. How I could have stopped, Paused, held back the Pounding of the day. The brick damage not me. I am more gentle than that. Please grace me with pause. The world hurts enough, Let me not be the hurter.

  A city on the hill, Most people called it a town. It still glittered, But the gold was gone. People still live out their lives. School chums, family, work. Day after day, their dreams A pay check away. Not much changed, A hope here and there, Most gone away. Always the sound Of distant trains That could take you A paycheck away.

Thoughts wash over you, Like incoming waves. Only to go out, Just beyond the grasp. Like a blank wall with  Marks left. You seek To bring it all together. Fighting back the frustration, Waiting for shells to be Left on your beach. Ones you can reach for.

  Jay waited for the next ride, the constant beat of the city soaking up the time, like a drummer in a band. He didn’t like quiet times, his thoughts often drifted back to the dark places in his life. Missteps, misdeeds and worse. How they had hurt others and himself.  Thoughts that always got through in reflective times. Somehow giving a crazy deafness to the better parts of his life, achievements and all. He tried to quiet these hauntings, hoping they would go away. They only became less dark, a graying if you will, but never going completely away. Overtime he understood this was the best you could hope for, that the real test of life being if you learned from your dark places.