A Pain in the Neck

i love a good pain in the neck.

i love the communal efforts
of my constituent parts
to find, address, soothe,
heal.

Pains, i know, can be ominous:
These i do not love.

What i cherish
Are those pains
That remind me
That i am plugged in --

That synapses and nerve endings,
Corpuscles and cartilage
Are challenged --

That they, too, react and respond.
i am a Tower of Babel,
Reaching toward the Sun --
Made of bricks that breathe.

Unguents and anti-inflammatories
Will reduce the pain
And gently draw a veil over
The urgent, insistent truth:

We are built on air,
Anchored in water.
Tunnels of time run through us.
Atoms collide.
Things fall apart.

We die.

And we go on.

--Mr. Gobley

Independence

Independence
Is a habit of mind:

It is both a gentle insistence
On setting oneself apart

And a vigilant openness
Toward every aspect of the universe.

It is the birth of real hope,
Being the death of captive fantasy.

Independence
Comes from being
Neither slave nor master.

A braid of
One's best attributes --

Humility,
Bravery,
Persistence --

Independence proclaims itself
The way a flower
Or a stream might--

By simply being,
In each moment,
Insistent on itself
As inevitable,
Timeless
And new.

--Mr. Gobley