Burning Man on the Brain

"Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." -Thomas Gray

"Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn." -John Wesley

Photo credit to Kiana

"When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself." -Shanryu Suzuki

I can't wait for next year on the playa.

Purposes

I was born to seek love and to give it
I was born to drink in the kiss of the sun and the caress of the wind
To run, and to keep running,
even as I fight myself to do it, for those moments when everything becomes effortless and my body lifts with my spirits to embrace the world
I was born to listen
And to learn
I was born to smile, and laugh, and weep tears of joy
I was born to desire
I was born to fall and hurt, and to rise again in spite of it
I was born to believe in my world
To yearn for far-off places
And find peace in the familiar
I was born to love the stillness of the forest
The rush of the wind
The calling of birds
I born to revel in the violence of lashing rain and cracking thunder
I was born to live with nothing between myself and the world
I was born to create
I was born to wander and to move
To play and to be still
I was born to dance
To seek the light
I was born to burn and be quenched
To know and to not know
I was born to touch
And to sing
I was born to give
And to take
I was born into pleasure and into pain
I was born to be proud
To go with the flow and never give up
To shape and be shaped
I was born to be happy
I was born to feel free
I was born for no other reason, than to be me.

Untitled

When I have a daughter

I will name her Symmetry

For the perfection of each blade of grass

The tracery of lines in every autumn leaf

The widening rings of ripples on water

I will sing her songs about sunlight

And birds that soar above us

The mountains sweeping up from the plains

And the whisper of the wind in tree branches

I will whisper to her all the secrets and stories of my life

I will tell her of every unknown grandmother and beloved aunt

I will surround her with the tales of my loves and laughter

Through my voice she will know every friend and relative I have ever known

And those whom I know only through stories of my own

I will share with her the freedom of empty mountain meadows

Of vistas too incredible to comprehend

Of cold clear lakes as blue as the sky above

And the joy of the earth beneath bare feet

Her world will be a glory of light and color

She shall never want for beauty

It will surround her in every moment

As much a part of her as the air she breathes

When I have a daughter I will call her Symmetry

And her days will be drenched in Life.