I Have Found A Meadow
a poem by Damien S. Riley

08/25/2024 8pm from my veranda at The Loft.

After a several days’ walk I find the road is often rough and wobbly.
I can fall if I lose my impermanent footing.
I keep a weathered eye and steady my gaze to avoid a stumble, though many times I have.
I know I will fall again but that’s ok, since I know how to fall and how to lube my emotional transmission and GET UP.

I am grateful for my mistakes, for they have made me wiser.

After a surplus has been stored inside my red zipped-closed backpack, I can feel its limit and I try not to breathe the noxious fumes that come from only myself.

Like ghosts in Anaheim they begin to materialize when I go over my surplus “level.” I’m getting so much better at knowing my limits, although I’ve found I am a limitless being. Figure that out and I’ll give you a dollar.

There is no view but mine.
There is no view but yours.
We are connected with different views that are only one to us and to eternity.

The yin needs a yan to be a yin, so I accept both.

I am all there is.

I am the eye of the universe looking at itself and where it’s brought me after 400 million years.

I have found the way is rocky and deadly if you slip. Just one can be a doozy. Leave you with a black eye and a sullen heart which waxes cold. It’s hard to remember where you are and who you want to be sometimes.

Search hither and yon but your inner being finds the meadow, when you stop resisting.

I used to search for this meadow, now I’m here and I ain’t never goin’ home. I cannot tell you where I am. You’ll have to find it on your own.

The tiny blue flowers minister to my beleaguered soul. I get tired even when I know I AM surplus energy, that essence which humans call love but I get tired still. I’ll tell you how to solve it when I figure it out and I am so close, babe.

It’s getting so much better all the time.

Every day I see more of me. I am vast.

I encompass the mountains I must climb.

Watching me in the meadow, so glad I found this place, a stop, a place to make a practice of stopping.

My guardian angel is with me. I take care of Damien and he is doing great, y’all should be proud. You needn’t worry about this here guy!

I must leave the meadow tomorrow for a minute but I shall remember the good vibe here in these long hours. They are my MapsAndLegends quest to the next part that only I can ever see ahead.

In fact, only I will ever see anything in here. I am all alone and that’s perfectly wonderful. You learn to enjoy ones own company or you skeletize.

Every day is a new song, have you got it yet?

I have found a meadow. I believe you can too. Come rest in mine along your journey if you like, fellow traveler.

Keep your eye on me and watch me change.

Cross that bridge, take every road, everywhere you decide to go you’re forgiven, THIS is heaven.

fin