Why Can't We Love?

My heart is burdened of late. There is a serious lack of love in this country.

Oh we talk a good game. We talk about unconditional love, Christian love, and forever love.

It sounds so simplistic doesn’t it?  Just love one another. But I am starting to think that humans are incapable. I am never more able to love than when I am alone in my quietness or watching nature as the clouds blow across a fall sky. It is so easy to love at that human-less moment.

Then the contact happens. Or media reminds us of our differences. Or we remember how that person lied to us and how we still have lingering anger. Or we remember how a partner hurt us when they promised to love us forever. Then love seems like a chasm, a canyon of difference, a mountain of impossibility.

The truth is we don’t really want to love. We say we do but I am not sure we believe ourselves. We resist it because it hurts. We shy away from it because it leads to pain as we consider all we have to lose. We are skeptical that this love experiment will ever work. Love is not a magic potion. It does not solve all problems. It is free but sometimes it costs us everything.

Love is light years away and shines like a distance star. We keep moving toward it but it seems like it is out of reach. We must march on. We must follow its light. We can never love enough, but every minute we partake in its goodness is time well spent.

Maybe there is not enough love in the world. Maybe there never will be. Start with yourself and prove to the world that love is not just words or emotions or selfishness, but it is as important as the blood coursing through our veins.

Prove that it is within our grasp. Prove that it is not a myth. Prove that it is worth the risk.

Like infants, like small children we reach out our feeble hand to touch it. We may draw back because it burns, but we do not give up. The reward is too great.

Imprints

I picked up

The fossil and turned it

In my hand.

To most

A lump of rock, devoid

Of form and substance yet

Mysterious in its own way and in its own time.

The lines from

Living footprints staining a

Portrait on canvases of stone weathered

And rewarded by thousands of years of dirty work.

I wondered about

My imprints—those I withstand and

Those I create.

Are they lasting and do they profess

That heat and pressure form the man and make us a work of art?

I am amazed at the

Beauty of the shapes that grace its

Beaten and tired surface.

Yet it smiles from across time and

Triumph as it proves that many

Treasures can come from

A deep and dark and

Pressured

Place.

A Glimpse

I. I see that potential man in the distance

A mirage of what I want to be

Will I approach it?

Will I see it?

Will I touch it?

II. I have a story to tell

A story of love, of loss, and of second chances

That story has a beginning
That story has an in between

That story has an ending

III. It’s not true that everything that has been said has been said

There is always more to say

Can I reach that potential?

Can I make the dream become real?

Can I fit myself into that mold?

IV: I have two choices: to push forward or draw back

Either choice is scary and demanding

This time will pass

This season in my life will take me somewhere

This life is what I always wanted

V. It is scary to finally see your potential

Like a superhero whose powers begin to take form

Will I use them for good?

Will I use them for evil?

Will I use them to change my world?

VI. I finally see that man emerging from his shell

Although it seems late, maybe it is right on time

The choices are in front of me

The future will proceed in its unstoppable pace

The prize is there for the taking

Time to reach out and claim the destiny that is mine.

The Bitter and the Sweet

     Unexpected
Loneliness hits you out of the blue; when you least expect it.
It makes no sense to feel alone in a crowd or even a full house…
When you long to feel nothing and even wish for pain and blood
To break the monotony of the numbness.

      Inextinguishable

Maybe loneliness is not loneliness at all.

Maybe it’s a yearning for something deeper…for something more;
Or fear hiding in shadows and begging for us to tame it as it
Cries in a corner and waits for the world to spin around again.

      Inexcusable

It hurts from deep inside but lingering guilt draws it back…

Hides it from those around you as well as yourself.
Loneliness is company to anger; the darkness pushes you to feel something.
Yet how can you feel nothing when the shadow of emptiness is laughing

            at you in the mirror?

      Unexplainable

We color it with busyness and searching for collectibles to fill the empty spaces

But matter fills us all--we have no control over the filling or the emptiness.
All we can do is hold out hope for the souring emotions to pass like a salty wave
As we wait for refreshing to sooth the burning wounds like a salve.

Loneliness is not loneliness at all.

It is so much more.

The Sameness of Home

Faded memories and fading neighborhoods; every tree and leaf appears to never have moved.

People changing yet staying the same; immobile yet moving forward into their unknown requiem.

Every step brings back a memory; every road and rustling wind reminds me of my distant past.

How can this body have aged yet this neighborhood seems to eternally hold on for dear life?

The roads are renewed and paved; the cracks shifted as the weather pounds them into shape.

Like the memories that are paved over with new ones, sometimes enriched and other times a new block fitting into the same round hole.

Yet I long to come back here…breathe the unique air…drive the streets that lead me to that old house.

When I go I take a piece of it with me to the big city.

But, like a mesmerized zombie, the old town eventually draws me back to face my former realities.

The new and old compete for my attention, yet they both win

I am left to contemplate the meaning of that confusing draw that leads me back to the sameness of home.