Learning to Live

~ a poem about flowing

Where does one learn the art of life?

Observation, experience, regret
A passive word and a deliberate action
Again and again, morning after morning
Night after night, over and over
Built upon a lifetime, and still
No-thing is learned
Everything is past
Some things are picked up
For a spell, for a lark
Every one a persona
One mask for every matter
Passed along, worked to its nub
Working for the task
or working for the people
You work for your self
Sowing for betterment, reaping for change
Changing yourself, bettering others
Evolving both in a competition unto forces inside and out
“Faster alone, further together”
— furthest as a collective race with a juicy reward at the finishing line

What’s the value in a race?

The push and the fire
The willingness to drive unto death itself for victory
The necessary evolutions in the contest, to advance the generations to come

Make no mistake: Life is a battle
We yearn to grow, to change, to flourish within this arena
And naturally, we wish to win
We are not alone; all strive unto the same
No matter to tools or talent,
We have to fight to survive,
Lest we too become past.

More than the mountains,
Over the skies,
Burning through the forests,
We choose to learn within the arena – eye to eye with a foe.

But what of the river?
It runs through it All
It makes life
It gives life, too
It sows and seeds and sacrifices
Yet its core run is everflowing, its essence unchanging
Never losing ground
It cooperates and crashes
Never ‘erring’
It is what it needs to be, to keep on
Never trying to do anything outside of its confines
Continuously streaming past every rock along the path
A persistent and unyielding force
Flowing where it thou mayest
Keeping together and going apart
Keeping and going