**Thank you Stephen King for the title, although the words are mine alone.**
I have this checklist.
Even when I'm oblivious
to the tedious meticulousness
of my mind's response to the state of my soul
- The one I call self, ego, a name, a glimpse -
I am keeping a tally ...
Summing the results ...
Evaluating probabilities and differentiating the flow ...
Once riding on a tidal crest
that carried with it a paradox,
There was a creature who
would sing out of beauty.
- A fleeting hope for a permanent state of existence -
It would warn of sirens ...
Weep for a heart's misuse ...
Preach on elusiveness and praise the art of symmetry ...
Along an afternoon I saw a child.
Worlds abounding to bright new eyes,
he had found a rebirth
from the tragedy of predictability
- Darkest of foes it has ended many a mind I've known -
There was purity in his questions ...
Abandonment of fear in his energy ...
Free embraces for all and the sweetest known consciousness ...
After a sun setting in a cliff
I came upon an old woman weary.
Fables of magic that abet reality,
She filled me with stories of the world that was
- Time that I hold no proof of and swear by to none -
Lamenting decisions unchanged ...
Fading towards might-have-beens ...
Smiling over a series of moments and serious moments the same ...
I go through this list
As it helps convince me of a certainty.
For all three irrelevant,
All three not of a reliable sort,
Each these three creating hope and
without them I may not rest.
I look for these things in each of my days,
my nights will not quietly pass me by.
Beauty. Childlike wonder. History.
Love.
I have this checklist.
Even when I'm oblivious
to the tedious meticulousness
of my mind's response to the state of my soul
- The one I call self, ego, a name, a glimpse -
I am keeping a tally ...
Summing the results ...
Evaluating probabilities and differentiating the flow ...
Once riding on a tidal crest
that carried with it a paradox,
There was a creature who
would sing out of beauty.
- A fleeting hope for a permanent state of existence -
It would warn of sirens ...
Weep for a heart's misuse ...
Preach on elusiveness and praise the art of symmetry ...
Along an afternoon I saw a child.
Worlds abounding to bright new eyes,
he had found a rebirth
from the tragedy of predictability
- Darkest of foes it has ended many a mind I've known -
There was purity in his questions ...
Abandonment of fear in his energy ...
Free embraces for all and the sweetest known consciousness ...
After a sun setting in a cliff
I came upon an old woman weary.
Fables of magic that abet reality,
She filled me with stories of the world that was
- Time that I hold no proof of and swear by to none -
Lamenting decisions unchanged ...
Fading towards might-have-beens ...
Smiling over a series of moments and serious moments the same ...
I go through this list
As it helps convince me of a certainty.
For all three irrelevant,
All three not of a reliable sort,
Each these three creating hope and
without them I may not rest.
I look for these things in each of my days,
my nights will not quietly pass me by.
Beauty. Childlike wonder. History.
Love.
