Periphery

Living with loose ends that seem perpetual is one of the difficult facts of life, especially if those ends were not expected to be loose and most of all if those loose ends had at first appeared to have the promise of completion upon which we set our hopes.

As we press on toward the mark we gradually begin to learn that those things we counted important, achievable and our destiny were really only elements of a process. With the process complete in any of its stages, we discover firstly a change in ourselves and then the elements we once considered so important are cancelled with our ready consent.

The destination is not without but within. When once the work is done within, those outward things we sought fade away, no longer perceived as desirable or important.

How many times have I thought I arrived only to discover I was just beginning! That which was is no longer relevant, as a fading flower that falls to the ground.

One must come to the sobering truth that all we do is vanity. The greatest works of men upon earth are entirely vain.

What’s more, as much can be accomplished and\or learned in the most mundane and simple things and activities of our existence as in what we perceive to be higher and more noble works.

Who has the measure? The issue is not one of what we do or how well we do it but one of motive and attitude. There is the key of deliverance from Periphery.

 

Periphery, Periphery,

Your victims going round,

Seeing, smelling,

Even touching,

Never but never embracing.

Back and forth

This time, no, next time,

Next time THE time;

Carrots dangling in circumference,

The center obscured without end,

Faithful sentinels posted,

Drawn swords uplifted,

Guarding the Gate of Total Freedom,

The entry of which brings peace

And joy and satisfaction.

Periphery impenetrable,

Periphery pretending

To be the destination.

 

Moon River Estates, Ab., April,
1991