What Now O Universe?

i've given my heart, traded my soul,

lost a friend, a father, an aunt

and buried my only son.

i've even laughed and sang

and danced a crazy jig

under the misty midnight sun.

i've tackled the bull by the horn.

when i wished for my demise

beneath its dusty feet,

yes... I've paid my dues and then some;

yet still

there's a  lack of consummation,

a dragging feeling of deficiency...

i've eaten with earls and baronesses,

talked into the wee hours

with the homeless and poor.

i've chattered with the towhees,

howled with the coyotes

 and whistled with the evening zephyr.

i've beckoned the delicate monarchs

at the river's watery edge

to join me in a cup of tea;

yet still

there's a touch of loneliness

clawing at the edge of my throat...

i've died and gone to heaven

when sequestered by an almond sunset.

i've poured out my stories of woe

to the peaceful babbling brook

and wrapped my consciousness

between the arms of a silky cedar.

i've traveled lands garnering wisdom

of the mystic ancients,

accepting this, rejecting that

till my mind floundered

in the pitchy quicksand

of too much knowledge;

yet still

those flashes of inadequacy,

a judgment of imperfection…

come sit with me a while my friend

while soft-spoken tears

etch the star-stained skies

as i stagger and stumble
deep in the mysteries of life...