Before Time

What if there was a
soundless explosion
sending everything into chaos?

After the explosion, all matter would bounce around randomly
forming patterns
without any purpose or meaning.

Infinite combinations
would come together
and fall apart.

But then, after countless variations of patterns,
a unique grouping would form.
You would come together
the essence of you
just existing for ages
upon ages
unitl you become aware.

You are everything and you are nothing.

You are just a spirit
floating timelessly in a void
floating
floating.
In all the universe
there is only you
floating for endless eons
not even knowing you are you
until another random pattern forms and you suddenly
become aware
of me.

Now there is you and me.

After the shock of realization
that you are you,
and I am me
would we seek each other out?
Would we rejoice in
ourselves
and each other?

You couldn't know you were alone until there was
something else;
someone else.
Perhaps we would begin to differentiate between
being alone
and not being alone
and we would feel one way when we were alone
and another
when we were together

and time would be born.

And then,
would we wonder,
is there more?
What else;
who else is there?

Just like we all want to know what is beyond
our physical existence
here on Earth,
wouldn't we want to know what was beyond our spirits?

Can you imagine our curiosity?
Would we strive to find
a way to know what else there was to know?

If you were just a spirit
with all time stretched out before you
without end
there would be no limit
to your dreams.
You could search
for as long as it took
to satisfy your curiosity.

You would find a way.

What if our bodies
are that vehicle?
What if we all existed before
and we were nowhere
alone, with out time
and we were trying to understand what the universe was about?

What if our interlude in a physical body
is not birth, but rebirth?

What if we created life as
a way of experiencing
the physical world that our spirits somehow knew was there?

Would we feel that being bound by gravity, hunger,
weariness and need
was a small price to pay
to know the universe?

What if, when our bodies
wither and die,
our spirits rejoice
in the freedom of eternity
without boundariesbut with knowledge
sought out for eons
by our everlasting spirits?

Would we cherish,
for the first time
how miraculous it was
to be free
in the vastness of forever?
What could we gain by forcing our limitless spirits into bodies bound in time and space?
Everything
all we know, experience,
learn and do.

What could we lose?
Nothing.
Because we would one day return to the eternal immensity of our
boundless spirits
and dance with the friends
we now know
in a timeless universe
we could never have
appreciated before

Small Pain In My Chest

The soldier boy was sitting calmly underneath that tree. As I approached it, I could see him beckoning to me. The battle had been long and hard and lasted through the night And scores of figures on the ground lay still by morning's light. "I wonder if you'd help me, sir", he smiled as best he could. "A sip of water on this morn would surely do me good. We fought all day and fought all night with scarcely any rest - A sip of water for I have a small pain in my chest." As I looked at him, I could see the large stain on his shirt All reddish-brown from his warm blood mixed in with Asian dirt. "Not much", said he. "I count myself more lucky than the rest. They're all gone while I just have a small pain in my chest." "Must be fatigue", he weakly smiled. "I must be getting old. I see the sun is shining bright and yet I'm feeling cold. We climbed the hill, two hundred strong, but as we cleared the crest, The night exploded and I felt this small pain in my chest." "I looked around to get some aid - the only things I found Were big, deep craters in the earth - bodies on the ground. I kept on firing at them, sir. I tried to do my best, But finally sat down with this small pain in my chest." "I'm grateful, sir", he whispered, as I handed my canteen And smiled a smile that was, I think, the brightest that I've seen. "Seems silly that a man my size so full of vim and zest, Could find himself defeated by a small pain in his chest." "What would my wife be thinking of her man so strong and grown, If she could see me sitting here, too weak to stand alone? Could my mother have imagined, as she held me to her breast, That I'd be sitting here one day with this pain in my chest?" "Can it be getting dark so soon?" He winced up at the sun. "It's growing dim and I thought that the day had just begun. I think, before I travel on, I'll get a little rest, And, quietly, the boy died from that small pain in his chest. I don't recall what happened then. I think I must have cried; I put my arms around him and I pulled him to my side And, as I held him to me, I could feel our wounds were pressed The large one in my heart against the small one in his chest.

Please Dad

As soft winds sweep away the days I look back on life through a haze. Remember playgrounds, parks and friends, In childlike gaze that never ends. The laughter in a game of catch, Shall memory ever attach... To innocence in youthful eyes, Catching the ball to Dad's surprise. I recall my first bike, first wreck, Who picked me up, said, "What the heck?" Convinced me to give one more try, While, knees skinned, I forgot to cry. Just the joy knowing he was there, Making him proud my only care. There was nothing I couldn't do, My heart held fast that to be true. Though teenage years were kind of rough, I sure wasn't too big or tough. You taught me to defend what's right And never back down from a fight. So I learned the hard way to stand, Still, with each lump, I found your hand. Drawing from you an inner strength, And stubborn pride of equal length. But there the line of fate was drawn, As though I blinked and you were gone. I found myself facing the sun, Not woman; not girl, fatherless; one. Eyes blinded by a void inside, I could not live that you had died. Alas finding it to be true, I could do nothing without you. Please, Dad, today just hear my call, I'm sorry that I dropped the ball. My life is wrecked, my knees are skinned, My emotions undisciplined. I can't get up although I try, Please don't be upset if I cry. Though I can't fight what I can't see, Please, Dad, say you're still proud of me.

I Was There

July fourth, two thousand four - sometime after eleven o'clock; way past my bedtime but mommy had two words to tell me before I could sleep. "Daddy's dead," she said. She was crying before the words left her lips. Heavy words, weighing down the tongue; choking up the throat. I knew exactly what happened, maybe more than anyone. You see,you're memory is second-hand, but mine is through my own eyes. 'Cause you see, I was there. A nine-year-old daugter watching her daddy die. Trying to stay strong as I lifted my voice to sing at the funeral - Amazing Grace - No. There is no grace. Someone had died. My father had died. Dived off the dock, making me laugh, splashing me. Where - no, why. Why did it go wrong? June twelfth, the accident - six inch gap and a diagnosis of paralys. Twenty-two days we waited; we hoped, we prayed, we cried. And I grew up. You see, I was there. You may not remember, but Iwas there.

Jupiter

Drops of acid turns into puddles of gold and rain of gasoline turns into floods of silver. But not here. Where need turns into greed, money somehow equals power and everyone taks but no one does. Oh no, not here. Gather the night the moon is full and I'll meet you in a sky of stars. We'll escape from the Hell we've built - the walls that were meant to protect but instead cease our troops from coming home. We'll leave the reasonless homicides and last resort suicides. Somehow we'll find a way out before global warming kills us, or another pointless war begins or a bullet collides with skin. Bring whomever wants to go and I'll meet you on the path of the Milky Way. There'll be no officials making promises they don't intend to keep; who's words weigh down the tongue and twists the mind. Everything won't just be black and white but there'll be color - choices to choose, decisions to make and the freedom to do so. There'll be no secrets; there'll be no pain. Leave this boxed life behind and start all over again. There's a full moon - we must leave soon. Time to meet in the starry sky - wave one last goodbye. Onwards to the Milky Way - you've said all you could say. Go on, pull the trigger. I'll meet you in Jupiter.

Every Day He Dies

The rose you laid to the grave of the one you loved. Laying there on the stone where your tears land from above. The wooden box now closed and locked to be buried underground. A haunting face - Amazing Grace; a wavering sweet sound. Four years ago - everyone knows what his life should've been. Then he was put away with nothing left for the priest to say - but every day he dies again.