Mirage Journey

How rapid their collection.

From nasty medicines
Cloaked with mother’s smile,
To spoonfuls upon mouthfuls,
Handfuls to bucketsful,
Filling irony’s three-drawer history
Upon one’s shoulders.

How innocent they approach,
These trickeries of surety,
Where rest and peace-certainty
Evaporates like vanishing rabbits in a hat.

Life’s landscape…

A parent’s belief,
A child’s trust,
A teacher’s urging,
A boss’s mind-game,
A relationship’s oasis.
All eventually becoming…

An undulating future,

Flattening erosion’s desert,

Where wind catches up

As the parched soul forgets thirst,
Realizing that which weighs heavily on its back
Has made but a packhorse of the traveler.

Nodding to exhaustion’s acquiescence,
Delusions swirl upward,
Where sands of the past
Readily make way for tomorrow’s footprints.

For the fortunate…

Acuity makes light the burden,
Revealing the desirable path less traveled,

Paved with discernment,
Guiding the adventurer beyond vaporous dreams
To that solid ground of awakening.