Flowing Through Life: A Dance of Generations

Conceived in heavens
From amorphous vapor
Condensate
Of a single droplet
Begins atomic expansion
Precipitating out
A tear from the void
Splashing down
Following gravity’s pull
Toward the unavoidable

Rolling along
Inexplicably nudged
Picking up momentum
Gathering steam
Babbling incessantly
With the stream
Passing through bends
Shaping them or us
Roiling over
At the unexpected turns

Picking up debris
Along the way
Crossing stones and limbs
Through the ages
Emotions overflow
With occasional flooding
Time to time
Overextended at the banks
Delible moments pass
In rapids and runs

Tumbling and falling
At stages
Losing touch and separating
With all we’ve known
Crashing suddenly
Eventually surfacing again
From the foam
Into a placid pond
Broadening out
And slowing down

Meandering
Watching in passing
Others fight
Resisting the current
We believe
We know better
Yet somehow they succeed
While we survive
We contemplate
Our own path

Was there an alternative
The whole time
Feeling saltier
More conflicted
Ripping against the tide
Moving backwards
Or standing still
Rather than toward
What appeared so clear and obvious
Frightened by what lies ahead

The end of this journey
Seems so near
A sea change is coming
Pleading for more time
Just a few hours more
But the moon calls us
Finally
Inevitably
Jerked forward
To rejoin with our ancestors

Greeted with enumerable waves
Of energy and dazzling light
In the great mysterious blue
To spend an eternity
Greeting the next generations
In a vast dancing pool of connectedness
Commingling our experiences
Melting our burdens
Dissolving our failures
Diluting our faults to nothingness

Melding our spirits
Releasing us
From this body
In the penultimate sacrifice
Becoming vapor
In the sun
Once again
So that life continues
With a rebirth
From the mist

Words and images by Michael J. Hall