MAN-MADE MAZES and MOUNTAIN PATHWAYS
Finally Losing the Way
Be still
Say no more
Words have been enough
Now let the silence guide us
Along this way we've lost
Listen to the sound of the rustling forest
Its trees sway and creak
Listing to the distant winds murmuring
To the waters flowing in the background
Streams of echoes spilling over the rocks
Planted firmly in the earth
Moody winds whispering strange warnings
Through the branches and leaves
Of the tall trees standing all around
Mysterious sprites singing
All finding their way
To the placid, still lake
Resting peacefully
At the center
Still being
Look upon the surface
Of the rippling water
Birds flying in blue water
Fish swimming in green skies
Two round faces peering up from the bottom's edge
Two round shadows looking down from above the bank
Between the ripples of the water
The bright flashing sun
Floating upon the surface
Where I shall go
You cannot follow
What's the point of turning back?
To go where we've already been
Things are never the same as before
We have come to a parting of our ways
We know it even without saying it
And our silence becomes the beginning distance
That shall forever come between us
Each shall follow a separate path
Each a path of separateness shall lead
Until we've come full circle
At our journeys end
To meet once again
On common ground
No need for final farewells
No need for tears
Or last minute celebrations
There is only the beginning silence
Of our new found distance
Our hands touching
Until they part
Life is full
Of unfinished ends
Unfulfilled hopes, forgotten dreams
Lost possibilities and wasted energies
Mistakes, frustrations and little time
Why speak now
Of the might of been
At the end of the journey
Why look back in forlorn regret
Or gaze sidewise in vicarious wishing
All the lost human potential
All the squandered talent
All the spent resources
All the wreckless motions
Let's only see what is
And make the best of it
Nothing is the word
We use when no other word fits
It is a label we use
To cover over all those little things
That clutters and makes a mess of our lives
Nothingness is the way of being nothing
Doing nothing, saying nothing
A grand emptiness without feeling
Without pain, without thought
It is a place where we go to hide from the world
The way that we take to get away from the world
Nothing is where we hide all our little mistakes
It is vast in its bottomlessness
Swallowing everything and anything we feed it
It is convenient because it takes no space
Nothing is either good or bad
It is simply neutral like negative space
Nothing exists because we exist
If follows us between our shadow and ourselves
Forever silent, empty and absent
Waiting for us
Along our way
It is the grand abyss of meaninglessness
From which we all came
To which we are all returning back again
Common clay
Under foot
Along our way
The mud of beneath our boot
Common soil
At the waters bottom
And around the grave
With which we mend
Broken rims
Have broken
Water cups
Wet mud
In which seed is set
From which lotus
And rice
Grow
The way is a distant mountain peak
Always hovering over our horizon
No matter how far we may travel
It never grows any larger
Or comes any closer
The way is a deep forest valley
Always lying between our path and our mountaintop
We cannot see its vastness from where we stand
But when we enter its thicket and become entangled
We can always look up and find the mountain
The way is the path we are walking
Upon solid middle ground
Turning between the mountain and the valley
It twists and turns and branches in all directions
And is not an easy path to take
For all the rough stones in the ground
The way is a deep still lake
At the foot of the place we are standing
When we come to the end of our path
All paths begin from its edge
All the streams of the mountain flow to its bottom
All the trees of the forest
Are reflected upon its surface
Between things
Between everything
Betweenness
States of Being
Statelessness
Between this and that
Between here and there
Betwixt and between
Neither this nor that
Both here and there
Between rocks and ground
Between wind and rain
Between trees in the forest
Between mountains in the valleys
Between time
Between being
Between names
Between games
Between living and dying
Between young and old
Between states
Of infinite balance
Between all extremes
Between wars
Between storms
The way between
The edges of the waters
The sides of the mountains
Always somewhere
Inbetween
Between being
Begin between breaths
Posing riddles
Between meaning
Between the lines
The words, the letters
by Hugh M. Lewis
Earth Tiding Verse
Along the Way
1994-5
Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.
Last Updated: 03/15/05