Alchemy

The erudite ancient,
His fingers stained with mercury,
Slept night upon night
Amidst unfathomable machinery.

And each night he was no closer
Than when he slept the night before
But each morning he still held his breath
When he opened the furnace door

One afternoon he suddenly died,
Tired, insane, and old
And became another in a long line of men
To waste their life for gold.

Fluency

We are frustrated. Our hearts churn with emotion and our heads buzz with activity. Thoughts link arm in arm with one another and armies of symbols and connections are born and die in seconds. The waters of the soul rise high and shake the foundations of the mind; they crash and recede back into depths of our spirit, taking forests of reason back into oily waters, and depositing thick black soil; messy and fertile.

We are infinite--It is unknowable, yet, somehow, I know we must be.

What a pity. You can never know--I can never know--the depths of these turbulent planets inside of us. We must use such meager and frustrating tools: a writhing muscle in our mouths, fingers, strings, paints, clay, paper, ink,words. They cannot show.

We must use them, these rough tools, these inadequate devices. We push ourselves--to communication; to understanding; to fluency.`