what's surprises me?

nothin' surprises me, growing old

growing ole along the lanes of hist'ry's path of knowledge

trekking the bloody trials of red, painted in tears of years

along the murky paths of justice on hold

imagined by the brilliance of multi-faceted notions

of innocence entangled in the destruction of peoples

via multiple delusions presented to lead them home

home to a land of muddied illusions

roads with prescriptions muddling their minds

emperors with nothing but dreams un-stapled

hoping for the taste of some mystical freedom

to be once, for once, themselves in charge

stuff without rocks or piles of snuff

clearing a vision of heaven on earth

a cloud of crowds already in hand

drifting into seclusions as one rushes to be

*Thoughts of Alan Jones:

  -We inevitably must let go of the things and the people we love most.  Everything comes to an end.

  -Is it only in the presence of death that we can see so clearly what love ought to be like?

  -The believer affirms that even our despair has to be given up and seen as the ego-grasping device that it really is.  Despair about ourselves and our world is, perhaps, the ego's last and, therefore, greatest achievement.

  -"That is how you have to be - like the dead; beyond cursing and praise, unaffected by the opinions of others." (a desert father)

  -To discover that our lives are "rooted in silence that is not death but life" one must first keep quiet.  And keeping quiet entails anxiety.