Compass Free (redux)
by Odin Roark

Beneath the quill’s hovering future,
there flows the present against life's shoreline,
where yesterday’s experience slumbers,
awaiting drifting’s new treasures.

Often, sweltering in lexicon-bondage,
words float aimlessly from calloused struggle,
unanchored to paper, anxiously waiting.

Yet…

When sudden lingual currents surface,
like frenetic tongues of a tsunami,
caps swell across the page,
even as one’s belligerent fever
often seals blistered lips
desperate to voice today’s message.

Nature’s instinctual wisdom
allows undertows of the past
to give cooling respite
as ripple and swell make ready
ancestral sand and salt,
tragedy’s blood of heroes past,
necessary wounds now primed to heal.

The tempestuous waves subside,
embracing inexorable continuance
as cyclic tides make ready
the natural burial of a life’s thought,
one’s tome of expressions set afloat,
inviting completion be set afire
by inspiration’s flaming arrow.

And so it is said…

The quill finds final rest,
inviting ink’s many papered swirls of the past,
to converge in celebration,
to burn as one into the next journey,
where dreams will once again
enjoin passion’s tempest,
discovering life’s quintessential navigation
floats through infinity…
compass free.