We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

We're chained to the post
Prometheus at most
tedious forebears of a terrible task
trying to love those who love us best -
even though the passion has past.

Throwing stones on the pond
the ripples ever widening the effect
on the center
Continually expanding and dividing
our responses changing,
but impasse is a formidable mentor.

As finality draws near
I see the world as ecstacy
beyond transition,
each instant burgeoning delight,
unfolding outwards into endlessness
where every second's thought
becomes eternal,
each moment's choice
a new beginning
reaching to realities unknown
until the present catches up with past
and future hurries by,
time decreasing in echoed infinities
between duration's measure
and hope's treasure
of emerald lands that shout beneath
bright shores by gleaming seas

Down within green silent shadows
of forested ravines carved deep
between the windswept sleeping dunes
that lie along the empty shore

Is where my God is found,
revealed deep down where march
of living trees conceals
all tales of modern life,

For the God I know eschews the
brick and mortar mortal men lay
down upon Her earthen flesh to
cover truth with lifeless versions
of their own.