Mirage’s Ill Promises
by Odin Roark

How rapid our collection,
from nasty medicines
cloaked with mother’s smile,
to spoonfuls upon mouthfuls,
handfuls of promises by the bucketful,
filling irony’s repetitive history
upon our shoulders.

How innocent they approach
these mirages promises,
where unfortunately,
the certainty of rest and peace
evaporates like vanishing rabbits in a hat.

Life’s landscape…

A succession of peaks and valleys.
A parent’s belief.
A child’s trust.
A teacher’s urging.
A boss’s mind-game.
A relationship’s oasis.

Eventually…

The undulating future flattens,
erosion’s desert wind catches up.
The parched soul forgets thirst,
realizes that which weighs down his/her back
has made the him/her but a pack-horse
for the next generation.

Nodding exhaustion’s acquiescence,
today’s illusion swirls upward,
always moving the sands of the past,
readily making way for tomorrow’s footprints.

For the fortunate…

Insight makes light the endless dunes of burden,
revealing a path paved with perception,
rousing the traveler from a dream,
to one anxiously waiting to awaken.