Light, A Distant Vista

                                                                                          In the Snood ~ Philip Brent Harris

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Responsible, preoccupied, needs, daily duties, urges to create.
Atlas beneath my half-sky, inventing my truth in beauty before I am late.
Days, time-paced, sheltered, stopped, shoulds and musts to meet and answer
While so few sought either truth or beauty; they didn’t pay the financier

Is shielding the candle flame from darkness worth the strain?
Will it fill the hole within my soul and make me whole again?
Who asks the question, who seeks the answer, why does it matter?
To be tiny unheard voices, canaries in a coal mine sing and chatter.

Will others ever even notice, do I toot my horn enough, too much?
Should I turn away, the impracticality of art a waste, a crutch?
Pain of creation, alone, brings hope and joy in equal measure;
Am I allowed to court my own fulfillment, pleasure, treasure?

Surely the needful life, time and energy and love, given just for others,
Should hold satisfaction more than enough, or do we fear it smothers?
Halfway home is halfway gone as we pace the long road, forth and back.
Can those who feel no need to quest, search and express feel our lack?

Can any with these needs, a gnawing hunger, do other than struggle, strive?
To express their truth, their beauty, their highest selves, to feel alive
So they must, they will, despite missing ears and rock-filled smocks.
Joining, if by life allowed, or wandering lost, life filled with bolts and locks.

Living part-time normal, whose standard, driven by forces, no choices.
Sharing inner acres, demons, angels, visions, driven, hoping the world rejoices.
How then resolve which meets the test, what is beauty, what is truth?
All rhetoric and nonsense which holds no meaning in our age or in our youth.

When greed rules, the basest, noble thieves and villains at the top.
Media-fed, proud ignorance, mob mentality too rabid, too violent to stop.
Till blood runs bright red, grim death invited to the feast, an honored guest;
Blood darkening the robe of this fell specter upon an endless quest.

Despite all, head down, humanity crawls on, humbled by staggering blows.
Yet art, beauty truth, hope lift our eyes, where light a distant vista shows.

~~~~~

Peace is Purpose, Nonviolence is Strength, Diversity is Unity, Empathy is Empowerment

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See more of my creative offerings and opinions at:

Brent Harris Fine Art

Philip Brent Digital Art

Vida Voices