Quiet Song
Poem
I want to live again without a screen
I want to write in a notebook
Instead of a phone
I want to curl up with a book
Not with social media
I want to look out a window
Not a screen
I want my attention steady, unfolding
Flowing and deep
Not flat, broken, and thin
As thin as this screen
I want my attention, my focus
As deep as the horizon
Nature, animals, flickering sunlight
The silence in the morning
A silence that makes you feel it
That makes you feel the distant fading hills
The silence that makes you hear it
How broadly life stretches beyond you
You feel part of it and then
Overwhelmed
With loneliness
Because it’s been so long and you feel so far removed
And you can never get close enough
And everything
The thoughts, people, stress, business, entertainment and distraction
It’s all gone
And all you have is this moment
That fills you up
And you love it so much
That you miss it
Because you know you can never have what you truly love
And you feel every ounce that you can feel
Is never enough
And you feel this constant yearning to return to truth and existing
A state of mind
A state of reverence
A state of awareness
That we are mostly blind to see
We see so little
Of the connecting strings between the masses of dots
Their impact on the whole, on the web of reality
Life, death, beauty, love, wind, light, water, seasons, trees, ancient traditions, temples
The weight of history
The pressure and pulse of the present
The pull and tug of the future
Constantly and subtly trying to shift its weight
Feeling life’s movement through time
A dance
But also a quiet song
That weeps with love
A lonely sweet kindness
more by ANNA ELISE
photograph by Pepe Reyes
