give a little more

This is what I would like to do:
Take myself on a trip
By myself
To a secluded place
Deep in the woods or high on a mountain
Or way off on an island in the vastness of the Pacific
No distractions from what we've done to this world
No distractions from other people talking about what should and should not be
Myself
Able to absorb what energy is taken away from me in the everyday rush of life
Able to communicate with the world and myself
On a level that I never dreamed existed.

I want to retreat to the way things could have been
if
if
if

Don't waste time thinking about what could have been,
They always say,
I always tell them.

But I'd like to sit and wonder
About what could have been
And I'd like to get to know myself
Who I'm supposed to be and
Who I could be.


Then again,

Maybe I'll never live in
That vine-enveloped cottage
In the woods
That I've dreamed of so many times
Because maybe I would never be able
To ignore
All
That was going on beyond those woods.

I can give more than that.

panic attack

Time runs behind me,
Encouraging me to keep going,
Stepping on my heels when I lag behind.
But everyday
It gets a little closer.
How little time we all have,
And how much of us time has.
Time is beginning to catch up with me,
I fear,
And I don't want to have to speed up
to stay ahead.
I want to slow down
Really smell every flower that i cross on my way.

But there is no bargaining with time.

Just as i think i'm slowing down,
I turn around to find a lifetime behind me
And the end in sight.

My feet struggle hopelessly against the Winds
that relentlessly push me forward.

in the name of observation

Something has to be said for routines...sure they're monotonous and mundane, and i really don't want to live life through routine, but good can come of it too.

Walking the same route everyday,
passing the same people on the way,
I get to notice the little things.
I get to recognize familiar faces
whose names I don't know.
The person who sells train tickets every morning
The girl who always waits just a few steps ahead of me
(whose clothing I always admire)

There's the man who sits on the steps on the only synagogue that I pass
There's the woman with the floral scarf on her head who sits at the corner just after that
One block up, there's the woman who looks like her
(are they related? are they sisters?)

I wonder what she thinks about during the day
Standing still while the world rushes by

She sees a lot of people and a lot of things happen
And she doesn't really say anything to people passing by
What's running through her head as day after day the same people walk by,
some pausing to drop money
others swiftly averting their eyes

Does she know things that we don't?
She spends her day
Sitting and Observing
Hoping to be noticed
And in her silence, what does she hear?

What do they hear in these sounds that
we make in our haste to ignore the "simple"
and envelop ourselves in our "important" work?