The illusion of conformity,
the lifestyle wars,
the lie that your lifestyle will last—
even the traditions you cling to are not to you
what they were to those who made them.

We cannot find the lock
on the door of the history house
and cannot claim to know
what passions and pains our own forerunners felt,
having left those emotions at the roadside
and chosen to chronicle the pulses of power
and nationhood over those of personal strife.

Like dust in the wind,
like the clock unwound,
your sense of time
has no bearing on the passage of it.

Change is the texture
of the morning sun on your face,
so why not open your hand
and appreciate the sensation—

absorb from it the value of the feelings we share,
the humanity that sends us all running
in search of a reason, in search of a prayer,
in search of each other, just not knowing where
the feelings connect us beyond our trivial affairs.