Baggage
by Odin Roark

Liberation once stood up
Opened its eyes
Allowed light to reach parts unknown
And…

Clinging remnants stirred
Aware to awaken
Might hasten inevitable evaporation
Inviting revelation
Seldom welcome

Still

How often this picture potential
This vagabond side
Wrestling local surroundings
Duplicitous people
Where one desperately reaches for the moment
That possible departure
From gasps of fearful need
The challenge to travel over the line
Where becoming the past again
Lurks with voracious appetite

Difficult it is

To continue beyond
Seeking to live as we are
Knowing we’ve the possibility to become
Not as others would have us
But as innate truth might be dictating
Providing earned reward
For hopefully minimal surrender

At such a point
Sufficient pain and suffering
Has made its impact
Readying one for the harvest
Of earned sacrifice
Affording limited
If not easy passage
Across boundaries heretofore prohibited

But

Unlike our feathered ancestors
Or our primate cousins
We often cling to that
Which freer instincts conquer

Ignorant that experience
Needn’t be harnessed
As drag-behind luggage
Our learned need to please
Furtively becomes an invisible habit

Yes

Liberation stands up often
But open eyes remain rare

The fear of light
Like the release from solitary
Or Plato’s cave
Where challenging silhouettes seem safe
Until one steps into searing heat
Proving reality’s shadow-light
Is not to be denied

Yet

When one is ready
Accepting the shaded past
Allows it be left behind as artifice
Knowing its temporary need
Has served its purpose

Ironically
We create rebirth once again
Chasing childlike innocence
Thinking this time
Tomorrow’s regretful baggage
Can be avoided