There are times where beauty is the only measure of purpose.

To wake without affliction,
To walk without addiction,
To wonder without fear or doubt,

None of these are assured.
Beauty helps us find a path among the fallen leaves.

When I have been most lost,
Deaf to the world,
Blind to myself,

It was Beauty which spoke to me.

When I was cut off from passion,
Cut off from love,
Removed from my sensibilities,
that fragile opal albatross flew overhead,
and showed me a way.

***

The ocean rocks hard against the shell of me,
the cold depths reach out,
as they always do,
To take me back to the place that awaits us all.

I am adrift, seeking the light.
I cast my mind out like a net,
hoping against the darkness and the strife,
that I will pull up something guide, bright.

My heart thrums, filled with senseless dread.
Purpose abandoned, no map but that which lies in the heart.
But it cannot be seen, for having frozen in its isolation,
The heart’s beat lies numb among the waves, dead.

Despite Desolation, that Albatross flies above.

Its wings of opal, eyes of diamonds, claws of stone.
There is no crack in its nature, it is there to show me the way.
As lightning traces the space between the heavens and the earth,
The albatross will lead me home.

A stirring of flames, a stirring of motion.

A heart beat returns.

The Albatross departs, but its image will never fade.
The mind does not forget that which saves it from wandering.