Do you wonder about me? How I nourish life in one hand and strip it away with the other? How I descend to the lowest places even the most bodhivassatic of you fail to go? How I ascend to the heights that once only the gods dwelt?
How do I do it? I yield, and therefore, I am strong. I turn aside at every touch, and yet my touches erode mountains. Ask the Appalachians: it once rivaled the Himalayas. Earthen banks, and fruits of the earth fashioned into vessals, may contain me for a time. Sooner or later, though, I break free.
Learn from me. Flow around your insurmountable obstacles. Watch them become mere stones along your path. Retreat a foot to gain a yard. Bend before the pressue, and then warp around it to progress on your path. Move with only the effort you require. Be still like an undisturbed pond when you don’t.
Or be rigid, then brittle, and break before the coming storms. Force things, and exhaust yourself far before your time. Tremble in your impotent rage, until you’ve burnt away your compassion, simplicity, patience and joy.
It makes no difference to me. Just don’t say I never told you there was a better way.
night
the river
still runs
for dVerse Poet’s Poetics: In My Element (pubtended by Amaya). Pub is open; come join us!
Frank J. Tassone 
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