What if one day we found the scales

To have fallen from our eyes?

And thus a river were a sonnet,

And a meadow something strange?

A field of purple heather like

A turning of the page?

A blade of grass a sword well wrought -

A slice of contemplation?

What if the swell of the world were held within a breath,

And the breath given out in love?

And we were no longer dreaming men with empty heads,

But doers of such dreams? Doers of our love?

To love any thing is to love it both in wholeness and in fragment - in sickness and in health. And what of loving a free country? I suppose I am finding that I love this country for her roughed up edges, tattered from the wear and tear of fighting for justice, and for fighting well. I love this country for all the ways she stretches to hear the volley of voices crying for an answer - crying for a listening ear. I admire America not only for the birth of a grand vision but also for attacking the daily battles this vision requires. Indeed, to be free is daunting. Not every country wills it on themselves - the price is too high, and it is easier to remain passively ruled. This, however, was never the call for America, dear friends. For to be free is to FIGHT against the threatening shackles of tyranny! To be free is to FIGHT for the lives of those even untouching your own! To be free is to FIGHT to love this dear country through every storm waging war on her resolve! Oh I love America. I love her in peace. I love her in opposition. I love her when parties collide and the fires of anger burn hotter than the fires of unity. I love all her stripes, stars, and that sea of blue. For she is mine. She was our ancestors. Is she still yours?

And why do any of us write after all? I consider writing to be a capturing of the life spring of human language. Strings of poetry, prose, ramblings, a haphazard mixture of all three - these carry volumes of meaning to and from a world deeply craving significance. Of course we require the oceans of vocabulary and the rivers of practical speech to carry our day to day interactions. But oh, bliss of heaven! to tap into those hidden mountain springs of tranquil and ferocious thought..

I write for a need to fling the rawness. A rawness similar to poets like Poe, simultaneously enraptured and terrified by the power of the dark. The rawness of Longfellow and the epic power of his meter (The Seaside and the Fireside). The rawness of dear Lord Byron, sweetly melancholic and aching for all the pain and pride of living..

I write for the sake of unity. At the core of every human soul pangs the longing for something greater. As a Christian myself, I know this ache in me to be the longing for Heaven. All of humanity longs to play an integral part in this human drama, and writers from all ages and nations, centuries and backgrounds, they capture and reflect this exquisitely through the language of the life spring.

I suppose I write, if ever desperately, to keep the "mountain spring" in motion and my scattered mind intact.

I hung a bough on yesteryear

I preached in rooms of folly.

And from loquacious

Sounds ring frazzled

Hearts too drunk, too jolly.

She stumbled in her laughing tears

Threw fits like entertainment

They crowded round the good ol’ show

I wept alone on pavement.

Is any of it real? I cried,

A sacred place still left?

The ancient path is well worn over,

Soul roots lie bereft…

And so, we set out in performance.

Painting faces, clearing throats,

Echoing our empty praises,

Reveling only in these lethal gloats.

And perhaps it is that we lack, not inspiration, but perspective; not the touch of something new but an acknowledging of those old dreams often buried. Worlds and galaxies of passion and fury lie neglected in the labyrinthine chambers of the mind, and we refuse to rediscover, all under the guise of craving some new kind of 'inspiration.'

As the night fades all memory of you,

I slumber in the hope of forgetting.

Yet awake to the sunrise I cannot escape,

As your name stretches like a banner

On mind and on soul!

Oh fate, dear fate..