life

dusk night sky in San Diego with a crescent moon

When you look at a star

Poetry 
You catch a photon of light
In your retina.

A photon that has traveled 
Hundreds, thousands, millions...billions
Of years 
To find rest in the bespeckled mitt
Of a golden-brown iris 
And set fire to the nerve endings
That reach for your attention
And hold you by the ears
And force you to look into yourself 
As you look into the night sky. 

Was that photon destined for you?
Was it fate that you two would meet?
Has it been on its way
Pinballing off silver moons
And glowering meteors?

Programmed into it — you.
No question and no alternative.
You were meant to meet.

I wait for the next time
A wink of starlight
Leaps into me 
And places me both near and far
To it all.
red, orange, and yellow lantana in bloom with trippy effect - photo by Tierney Brannigan

Life in Color

Prose

Life is full of opposites and made bearable by compromises.

Black-and-white thinking has been my go-to. The answers are always uncompromisingly clear. That’s not to say they’re simple.

It’s been a struggle to break out of this mode of thinking. Although it is a painful way to look at problems and make decisions, there is comfort in knowing there is no gray area. There is no room for the unknown or unpredicted. Reasoning bends to one possibility or another, like light through a glass of water.

The truth is that the universe is not black and white. It is a static of endless colors. Overwhelming and opportunistic. It really is beautiful.

So, what are we doing here? What am I? Is the purpose to take in as much as possible, to understand it? Or to add to it? It all feels very heavy and completely invisible at the same time, like the weight of the atmosphere 12,000 feet above sea level.

There has to be more to being alive than facilitating the movement of something that will have no meaning now, or ever. Money is a white-and-black blinding distraction from the technicolor of the universe.

Have you ever wondered about what miracles of chance had to take place for a blade of grass to puncture the soil and grow up towards the sky?