Poetry – Page 95 – Picking Up Roots

Painting

how do I paint
a picture of the natural world
within the confines
of inadequate words;

how do I make real
its vast and intricate beauties;
how do I show it
stealing your breath away
as it fills you with life;

perhaps, it is to encourage you
to open your senses;
to hear the songs of the birds,
to feel the summer breeze kiss your skin,
to open your eyes to the life that surrounds -
to see

Burdens

what you cannot put down
I will pick up -
this life is a shared weight -

it is not the weight of its burdens
that brings us to our knees,
but how we carry them;

I will take on more,
for you;

to see you light,
I would lift the world

Missed Silences

why do we run
from life's empty moments -
those rare instances
when the hectic noise of living
goes silent -
why do we find 
no satisfaction there,
alone with our thoughts;

we are afraid
to let our minds wander free,
tripping over the realities
of the truths
and new ideas 
that enter the void;

instead we fill these silences
with screens,
their overpowering array
of images and ideas
empty calories
that exhaust our minds;

in this artificial noise
we lose a great opportunity
to nurture ourselves
to soothe our souls