All things must balance, so I'm told.
Every good word given out, three return.
Every bad word offered equal,
The same returns ten-fold to haunt.
But of a tear, how to measure?
The blinding light of morning sun.
A gentle butterfly, sipping nectar,
An orchid seen high in jungle tree?
Softly dancing with a partner loving
In the evening moonlight song.
The fragrance of a rose that flies away.
The soft cricket's chirp a-chiding.
New green life, a tender sprout
Roughly craggy volcano boulders
A golden frog in jungle home so damp
Burning cactus in boiling desert.
Smell the ozone from a lightning storm,
Ears are deafened by roaring thunder.
A quiet echo in a cavernous canyon
Gentle children playing upon your knee.
The silver pine with mountain sage,
Crisp cold air, clean and biting sharp.
A soaring eagle calls, eager in the hunt,
Tiny mountain mice scurrying in the brush.
Smell the woodsmoke on a winter night,
Hear the birds declare return of spring,
Reap the summer harvest now so grand,
Prepare again the phoenix through the fall.
Salt ocean spray upon my face,
The flying fish trying to escape.
Hurricane winds and seas that roll and roil,
Tiny boat caught in the bottom of the trough.
My life's been taken many times
And given back each one.
How then am I to fear the onslaught
Of the scythe which can't give back?
By whose measure will I be measured,
Or will I find myself my own measure?
I would have my scales balance, as they must,
If for none other, then for me.
copyright jas 2007
