Wishful Thinking

Something from the archives...

She scuffed along, pushing the fallen, dry, dead leaves out of their places to make way for her own procession. She looked down at the sidewalk, up into the trees, off into the clouds, anywhere but at the people around her. She didn't much fancy dealing with her fellow humans at the moment. She felt wishful.

In actual fact, she felt a fair bit more than wishful. She positively yearned. The emotion overcame her, pounding through her veins fiercer than acid. Every particle of her soul stretched, reaching for her dream. But it was not to be. Or it seemed that way. You see, what she actually longed for was passion, love, anything with a similar form. Love for a person, love for a subject, love for an idea, just love. She wanted that focused, oriented, purposeful feeling. Surety. Surety and joy. These feelings would surely motivate her, spur her on to accomplish something great, meaningful, lasting, profound, good. Surely. Right?

Unfortunately, her wishing remained her only emotion, dragging rather than driving her. Overriding any possibility for any other emotion to spring up in her at the moment. Ironic, this passion for passion defeated itself, in pushing out any other feeling including the very one she desperately reached for.

And at last another emotion began to flow under this torrent of dreaming: remorse. Remorse that she couldn't muster a nobler feeling, dream instead about serving others, helping them, doing good. She knew that this self-centered melancholy dreaming wasn't right, wasn't good.
And all at once, the mountain of her longing collapsed, the foundation eaten away by the repentant undercurrent. Exposed, a sincere desire to do good remained, a sparkling promise in the fall afternoon sun. And a pure fountain of hope began polishing this new drive.

Silence

The music in my heart cries out.
Oh for glorious release!
But stifled still, my stone ribs
Stop the breathless notes within.

My insides ache, my fingers itch
But only silence rings
As empty ears, and empty mind
Yet lack the notes to sing.

The unknown question, the unsaid word
Hangs behind the veiled air.
To opaque thought and formless moaning
Whirls my mind again.

I long to taste, to feel, to breathe, to shout,
To cry, to speak, to sing!
But only vacuum meets the prayers
That spacious minds will bring.