Numbers

I am number 87, I swear, 76 nicked my fatigues.

2160 kisses with Mary Jane, or thereabouts. Still sane, boringly so.
1 person. To count on. You.
7 billion souls. Fireside company.
Enough $. Unknown number.
2 dreams. Life and death.
1 kiss. Brighter day.
32 years. Still young.

∞ hope. Alive.

0. The end.

1. begin again

2. You and I

3. family

4. brothers and friends

5. human too

6. love

7. delight

8. joy

9. sorrow

10. grief

11. despair

12. don't pull out your hair

13. knowledge

14. understanding

15. peace

16. desire

17. sabali

18. diligence

19. spirit

20. honour

21. stand in bold colour, even in the corner

22. fade to the back

23. skiff, man and sea

24. bliss

25. doubt

26. abandon

27. step out the door

28. ask of yourself a little bit more

29. forlorn and fearless

30. drops of wisdom

31. center

32

I’ve been asking myself questions, like, what does it mean to be kind? Can you measure it? Is it right to attempt to do so? I don’t know, but I have come to believe without reservation that it is important for my wellbeing, mental and physical, to be. But how can you be something you don’t know how to measure, how can you know with any degree of certainty that you’re attaining this state? I don’t know that either.

What is the purpose of life? Not just human life, but all life, what does it seek? Why does the tree in the open field stretch its branches to the sky, spread roots deep into the earth? Burrowing in the hot desert sand, what seeks the scorpion? The cactus, flower, bee, all the life that is, why is it that it bleeds?

I am expected to know by now what I want from life but I feel inadequate in the face of this question. Years gone by I would have desired nothing more than warm embraces and kind eyes, arms to hold and a few pieces of gold. Now it all seems childish, games played by toddlers in the sandpits, mine, yours, a little bit selfish. So what is left to desire if not you, the things you brew or what you approve?

Say I was a tree, out in the open field I live, brown limbs and green hands outstretched and open, knobbly feet planted in the earth. I would seek no more than the warm sunshine on my face, gentle wind on my skin whispering tales from across the hills and a drink of cool waters from the streams beneath my feet. The company of birds, beasts and bees I would keep in waking moments and sleep but would I want for a forest wherein to be a tree?

If one day the man came, wielding the steel, would I quiver in my last moments as it cut the flesh? The tree dies, one day. It is here now and then it is gone, so many years, a history mankind cannot measure, hewed, withered, dry, the spirit is gone. I become the chair, the stick, bridge the miles between, the life you seek and what is just for I can measure, a foot, yard, space to fill, door, beneath the floor, where does the spirit go? I do not know.

I will ask, all the days of my life, till as the tree, I cease to be in the spirit, only an idea, a memory of a place where we used to live, the hills.

I have been searching for some peace of mind though, something to let me be at peace with everything in my world, perhaps knowledge of the why, the motive, can be enough but I have my doubts about that for there are questions, whys, that I cannot know. It is futile to keep asking when there is only silence. 

How is it that the tree stands in the night, out in the field, at peace? How can I be the tree? 

Amidst all the questions I have found a strange calm peace in the knowledge that it cannot all ever be known, at least by me at any one point in time, there is too much to weigh, the mind baulks. I have stopped short of measuring certain things because measured against the knowledge I possess, I know I would never return clean across that line and yet there are the lines I have not seen, the ones I have traversed without a raised eyebrow, the ones I ran down screaming, flaming torch raised high, dancing to the moonlight. What do I make of these?

So I have stumbled on, trying to put the picture together. Of my life? The world? Humanity? Life? I don’t know. I have learnt though how to be patient for there is what you seek and that which you need and sometimes lost in the noise of rushing winds, you might miss the falling leaves, yet you must never fear to reach for what you dream for in the dreaming dwells delight and the seeking will teach you how to measure a cup of joy enough for a day.