Roll flat the surface of your understanding.Straighten your outlook.Undergo the ironing of your dreadful drunkenness.To learn how round the world can be.
There are people out thereRight nowThat are happyNot just in piecesOr here and thereBut as a wholeThey feel like they are okayThey are capableOf doing what they wantWithout spending an hour or twoJust lying in bedWaiting for vials of neurochemicalsTo charge up their brainOr sleeping enough to get lostIn the paralyzed roomsOf their own inner conflicts
The pull and dragA perfect weightJuxtaposed to rip back the progressForcing all the forward from the front linesThere is nothing more drainingThan the words builtOn stone pedestalsWiped clean of the mossThat gave them life
Black leaves bleed into an early morning sunriseCoffee stains through my hairBulldoze my closed palmsAnd sand flowing over the lakeMurals painted on roadsideBaskets riddled with holesGoats on cliffsidesAnd chocolate melting in the afternoonHillsides go from brown to greenSit with me this afternoonStare into icy irisesAnd refill a glass
These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,And happy units of a numerous herdOf playfellows, the laughing Summer brings,Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings,How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;And where they fly for dinner no one knows--The dew-drops feed them not--they love the shineOf noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine.All day they're playing in their Sunday dress--Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less;Then, to the heath bell's silken hood they fly,And like to princes in their slumbers lie,Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all,In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
Blessed be Thou for all the joyMy soul has felt today!O let its memory stay with meAnd never pass away!I was alone, for those I lovedWere far away from me,The sun shone on the withered grass,The wind blew fresh and free.Was it the smile of early springThat made my bosom glow?'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor windCould raise my spirit so.Was it some feeling of delight,All vague and undefined?No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong,Expanding in the mind!