Masks

The summer sails –
but needs no ship.
The emerald hills
never sought to glitter,
never strove to become
as they are.

You can no more be
lazy, indolent,
responsible, hardworking
than they are.
They are
among many metaphors of you.

With personhood
comes evil and good,
failure and success,
striving for happiness,
the arduous task.
When your parents called you
“lazy”, “responsible”, “hardworking”,
mask was addressing mask.
You can no more be any of these
than a crystal stream or summer breeze
or indigo whispering star after star.
You are
not the “I”
of thought.
How can failure or success apply
to what is not a person – but the heart
of life itself playing a person’s part?

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