Illumination
By: Zinta Aistars


The time is now:
this moment, this
blink of an eye.
All changes, all breathes,
all life swallows
its own core
and is reformed.
Each cell regenerates,
every heartbeat leads
to another to flush
lifeblood through veins
that snake through a body
each day reborn.

A hatching thought,
epiphany - burst of bright,
inflaming an idea
to burn the torch of mind,
this place where life begins:
not seeded in flesh or womb,
but in grooves and coiled
fist of thoughts.

The creator in all of us,
semblance of divinity,
creator giving creation
a legacy to light
the candle beneath its cover -
lux esto - burn bright,
be light, creator
and creation both -
oyster and its pearl.

Touch the cool waters
and know your powers.
Illumine pathways,
blaze the trails,
mold the clay,
claim the life
steaming inside your soul.



Badlands
By: Zinta Aistars


On this dry and barren moonscape,
pitted and crumbling, tattered and sharp,
ribbons of lavender and stripes of wine
leading the eye from jut to jut,
a skittering nugget of pale yellow mud
marks its path from a summit
in tentative crawl into sudden mad rush,
to catch on a pebble, once again fall -
tear of dust dripping from the chin
of a mountain into the abyss,
the rippling bleached ribs of the Badlands.
In the vacant air, no one hears,
no one notices the rasp of a bored
tumbleweed, sway in its imagined breeze,
loosen, break free, tumble
after the grains of scattered dust -
a thousand silent snake eyes,
thirsty prairie dogs color of sand
popping like corks from their dens
to watch
the drunken courage of a tumbleweed's waltz.



Sans Souci
By: Zinta Aistars


Gathering to bask
in those final fading rays,
walking on sun-burnished gold,
the sand a gilded sheen
beneath our feet, waves
a whisper that hum
the evening into ultimate night -

Why can we not approach
our own numbered days
with this kind of golden silence?

Hearts at rest, content,
pleased with our labors,
carried by the gold
of days lived
and lived well:

Time cultivated with gentle hands,
homage given to the gods in us all,
demons acknowledged but not spared
the polish of lesson learned and applied.

These ephemeral days
that we lavish in such waste -
gather them, gather with speed,
arms filled and eyes brimming with gratitude.
Last call, last bell, final blessing,
the saving alarm: this is now,
the glimpse of time, the wink, the only one
that counts, the single moment
that changes everything.



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