This Time…

How have we been choosing to live, to be before this time of pause?

This time that does not graduate to a greater existence, but remains alive to all states of predicament and wonder.

This time that does not freeze a moment to marvel at vaporous beauty, but opens wide and long to engulf the colors beneath the rainbow.

This time that does not gallop forward to deny the current wrath, but progresses as is to regard the small joys of today.

Have we truly consumed this time in the way it has chosen to devour us with its affairs?

My time, before this time, was absorbing sounds of train horns that wailed well into the mysteries of nightfall and shadows of moonlight.

The distinct smell of lingering booze awakened me to the collective aroma of human suffering and the loss of shared consciousness that exist to endow the present with our powers.

The sights of weary professionals bustling through street traffic and frail bodies amassing on the road’s heating grates forced dilation of earth’s sober reality: the diminution of them for a new and improved us.

My time, before this time, was entangled with sophisticated talks of being. My demand for a lofty reality left behind the ones craving rights of body and inclusion of mind. A shallow smile, pithy acknowledgment and nervous giving was all I offered to the many laying low on the survival pyramid.

What did I represent to those traveling the thin line of existence? Who did I epitomize to those downing the earth’s refuse? These questions now rise from a prompted stillness…

Now as I lay low, appreciating the basics of continuation, I’m enthralled by the movement of nature’s rhythm.

I glare at the pink moon pushing towards us, wanting to hear our bedtime stories, moving closer, directing its glow to the fine details of our wet prayers.

I trace the water waves and witness its ripples meeting the shore with a roaring lightness. The bubbles that form and sizzle as they ease the ground represent my jitters tempering to a steady plain.

I eye the sun’s edge rising above the gulf, illuminating the eastern sky with is orange fire. Its reveal exposes me, the dire woman in need of a slow down and the feel of Texas wind grazing through her crinkled roots.

I notice the seagulls settling on the shoreline, heads tilt as they gape at the endless current, reminding us that they too ponder and have inquiries to resolve. A personal memo that we are all existing in this fury together and this time is a call for human engagement.

The universe is calling for us to seek light in the collection of obscurity and grace within the clusters of imbalance. As the earth continues its rotation, harmonizing the nightfalls and sunrises, we are now selected to equalize with the cosmos. As an abundance of light suffocates a butterfly weed; darkness is needed for the plant to prevail. As a surfeit of good produces a static existence; evil forces are required to urge the birth of reflection, inventions and creations. As the perpetuating busyness of society overrides simplicity; respite is needed to connect with our basic anatomy. We should feel into the unsteadiness of our heartbeats and experience the pounding relinquish as we give it slow air. We should feel into the coolness of our breaths and experience the vastness of our diaphragm protracting, restricting, making way for enduring inspiration. We should meditate on the truth of this moment, although darkening and blunt, its remnants will pose as reminders for us to ease our anxieties and reach for the starlight that speaks a brighter story. Our resolve to live, to be fully in this time of rest is the greatest contribution we can offer to ourselves and others.