Quiet Opulence
by Odin Roark

The race to the top,
acquiring the approval of everyone,
forever sweating on the StairMaster of ambition,
obsessing on stuff as proof of one’s arrived,
unconsciously becoming but an animated dollar sign,
eventually becoming a member of society’s homogenized success.

Dripping stress’s toxins from every pore and orifice,
glory,
adulation,
envy,
and off-shore accounts,
echo the all-convincing “life doesn’t get any better than this,”
unless…

For a few,
experiencing the rarefied anomaly of becoming
one who makes his or her own finish line,
achieves the approval of few,
remains forever impervious
to the collective’s seduction,
and discovers getting up early enough to see the sunrise
and staying conscious enough to enjoy the sunset,
is what separates rewards from payoffs.

In such a place of the mind,
there resides a different kind of island offshore,
the inner-one where sounds are quiet,
cacophonous clamor is distant,
ebb and tide remain private,
where to be his or her own person is the given,
a distinction needing no board approval,
no golden parachute to break the fall
as fixed-ropes of delusion continually erode.

Discovering one’s quiet opulence,
the solo indulgence never needing forgiveness.