Serenity

Peace love and contentment
A sense of fulfillment
Are more a state of mind
Than an estate of things;
But do we seek them falsely
In a world of hunger and disease
And dirt and grime and shanty towns
Where crowdedness abounds
And dreams are crushed before
They are formed?

Where are the work the effort and
The sacrifice that go into
Teaching and building and
Planning and growing?

How is it possible to find
The comfort of solitude
Without shutting out the world
Around us?
And if we do find them
How can we share them
In good grace and clear conscience
When they are rejected by
Those who need them the most?

Perhaps the mystics have
The answers
For surely I do not.

I am leery of those who
Project too much passion for their beliefs
It suggests they have found a truth
That eludes all others;
Believing in purity and self beauty
Are incompatible with a sense of
Modesty and logic while it suggests
Form over substance;

I am not at all content with
Who I am or what I am or
Why I am or how I am;
And so peace and fulfillment
Are too distant for me to
Pretend to something without
Having traveled the distance
And having made neither the sacrifices
Nor surmounted every obstacle
Along the way before I dare to
Bask in that tranquil place some call
Serenity.