Earth

Around me circles planet earth, the sun about the stars. Oceans surround me, forests encompass me, cities encase me, people imprison me. The light of day is not enough, who trickles between bars. Nor the stars at night so never near. Hope is what calls me, purpose eludes me, meaning deceives me. Yet I look up.

To shifting shapes, surfacing pedestals, reaching hands and tired arms that hold my steps and stretch themselves to set my foot on solid ground. Oceans before me. Faces inscribed in ancient bark, pointing branches ever up, blooming leaves that fall to ground to leave their trees there standing bare whose wisdom is what lies beneath what gave them life without a word.

Whispers are lost to the echoes of progress. They move too slow for the movement of the earth. My step is too slow to keep pace with the earth. What I see in the distance is the faintest glimmer of the earth. It is its light that guides me. Ever in the front.