It takes a lifetime to learn to feel at home
On this Earth; to know that the storms and sudden buffeting winds
The tremors of the ground, the sudden apertures appearing below
The tribulations, the losses and the anticipation of losses
will not succeed in severing one’s connection to this earth
That time has proven one can stand through it all.

But by then it is time to prepare for the end
One sees that the path, while sure, is short
The horse sniffs the air and picks up its pace
in anticipation of the barn
the bear snorts and prepares its cave
the bird feels the call for the long flight
It is time, one knows,
To identify with that which is eternal
To sit in the space of emptiness,
Awaiting and understanding
In silence the ultimate futility of material dreams
And the impotence of demons. For soon
The sacred nothing will have to suffice
and to exist in an ether
Whose seasons are defined by millennia
Seeing all with the eyes of god, both burdened
And freed by the vision of wisdom, at last aware that
In the inevitable endlessness of time, all is the same.