Fair Trade

The chattering mind cannot decide which fact afears it most: that we live, or that we die. At the prospect of death, the hamster wheel between our ears falls off its damned hinges—yet that same self goes about sideways, like a crab, taking life at nothing but their periphery, and then has the claw to wonder where the time went, how they got to their current burrow keeping their head in the sand and the hourglass runs, straight down and true with no delusions, conscious of each grain fallen to seconds and firsts—we are invited to take it up, this sober act of knowing, of presently being. Put down the second-hand life in your palm, silence it, leave it at home! Once, all outside the womb was new to you, was full of the juice of life waiting to sate your wordless tongue. Have you picked the trees clean? Then run" New trees and new fruits await with novel, unique life to stay the tide of time—if only for a day. And right where you are, tired of sleep but certain of what is barren: look again, adjust your eyes, have faith and fall and fall into love, and I promise, the sweet nectar of the moment, of wide-eyed, long life awaits you… Faith first, then we leap!