By: Bruce Levine

The Next Plateau

Roads taken
Following twists and turns
Roads less taken
Often straight
But often less scenic
With fewer variables
Fewer variations
Fewer vistas
Fewer paths to the next plateau
Trials and tribulations
A sing-song melody
Weighing and measuring
The fears of the unknown
Hills and valleys
Criss-crossing a rocky terrain
On a topographic map
Drawn with disappearing ink
On antique parchment
Yet the next plateau remains
Fixed in reality
Fixed in the subconscious
Fixed in the soul of the believer
Spreading out like a picnic blanket
On the bank of a river
Filled with rapids
Filled with the swift current
Of a waterfall
Beautiful in the sunlight
As it spills over a cliff
Carrying dreams
To new paths
Shaped by the river
Carved into canyons
And a new reality
To be climbed
To the next plateau

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Society’s Refrain

Society’s refrain
Sung in silence
Acted on stages
Invisible
Awareness inculcated
Through means
Telepathic
Audiences affected
Without restraint
As if by happenstance
And yet pervasive
Evolutionary while
Transitory
Forecasting and recording
Indiscriminate renderings
Fractured by geography
Indeterminate
Wholesale manifestations
Reflex reactions
Time passing
Through society’s refrain