When did I become a tourist here?
Forgot how to see and how to hear?
Hear the sea, see the here, now.
How did my feet become so soft?
And when did I decide TV was a better way to chase my time away?
Than watching glowing embers breathe and sigh, beneath the fire-full, star-rimmed sky?
When did I internalize the rat race and adopt that sorry fast London pace?
Why didn’t technology and self-checkout machines buy us more time to dream, give us the means?
When did it become acceptable only to give to receive?
And thought so regrettable to do for doing’s sake?
I forget it’s my life at stake;
Aiming to exchange each precious hour
For pieces of green paper power.
Let go of resistance
I’m told, focus on existence
This pressure cooked system will crush itself.
I continue to roam, a tourist with no home
Until I see these bones –
And listen to the alive tree’s groans
They remind me, there’s a palace under my feet
That all of my cells will crumble to meet.