The great below

The fluid has a steady flow

In then out like a warm casual breath

Only more strained and rigid

I lay on the rocks and sand

With the vegetation

My old companion

There is a synchrony between us

The escaping tide and my mind

Returning repeatedly but ever somewhat less fully

Both of us under the pull of some greater object

Uncertain if our guides act from whim or wisdom

The substance is impure and the body spasms

But underneath there is a welcoming

There is down the line a return to the ocean

Where all is swallowed up

And one's persistence is ensured by one's dissolution

But until then let me stay in the borderlands

To recognize this moment's admixture of comfort and terror

Of pleasure and pain

Of madness and peace

Of the natural and the perverted

Of drives and distress

Help me to synthesize for a fleeting moment these twin forces

That I may dwell in the silence of Being

The cold comfort of a reflection

From the underside of a still, shallow pool

                                                                 -Brandon Fenton 2013