Tracers

Arriving in a rush, but disappearing with the slightest breeze

Overwhelming in an unguarded moment, but only until scrutinized

Dissolving like a dream in the light of conscious thought

Like dreams, always returning, because they exist everywhere

Yielding a glimpse of strange meaning beyond our everyday concerns

Bringing on fear, hope and emptiness as well as great content

Dripping from a wet, fallen and decaying tree

Incising its mystic patterns upon red desert sandstone

Overheard in the springtime soliloquies of the streams

Leaving with all that has gone away since we first arrived

Surrounding an echo thrown across a canyon

Part of the glint off an ice spring far up on that distant peak

Radiating about the edges of the many-colored thunder clouds

Hovering in a rainbow tune with the buzzing hummingbirds

Embedded in the past as it overtakes us on occasion

Hinted at by beautiful mathematical revelations

Valued companion when it is our time to slip away

Harmonically attuned to our finest vibrations

Integral component of the growing pre-dawn magic

Evaporating like the dew with our noise and confusion

Yet likely not diminished despite our destructive efforts

But certainly obscured by the rending of our progress

Density unaffected by the expansion of the universe

Tracing an outline that changes simply with our perception

Frozen forever in the melting winter ice

Captured complete in one flowing river instant

Disturbing to those groping their own infinitesimal portion

Indescribable as the ocean from a bit of foam blown off a wave

Scorned and rejected by the materialistic and powerful

Sought just the same when they lay down at last

Whispering in the breeze that passes through the pines

Rustling in the background through the leaves of the fall

Making up the silence that is the natural order of things

Only rarely dwelling in the constructs of man

Potentially giving rise to those dark-haired sisters, mercy and grace

Subtle enough to be accidentally crushed underfoot

Dissolving in an instant at the slightest disturbance

Neither created nor destroyed or even effected by time

Sensed everywhere but welling up from within

Blindly trampled by the hordes in their mindless peregrinations

Pure and clear in the smell of a large fish brought alive to shore

Frightening in its absence from our ongoing business

Locked in a slanting ray of sunshine on a day in early June

Escaping us in its flight from our mindless entertainment

Valued very little by powerful entrepreneurs

Part of that god in whom we trust with our dollar bills

Disregarded by the clergy, fossilized amidst odd ceremonies

Sought by those young people of good but restless hearts

Flying overhead in the foggy echo of a wild goose

Revealed in the wonder at a child’s quiet wisdom

Refracted by the colors given off in an ocean sunset

Quickly evaporating during bickering or fighting

Lost in the endless chase for the newest shiny toy

Not really glimpsed during the hypnosis of the purchase

Part of the aura surrounding those captured by madness

Dried up and blown away by our hoarse and empty voices

Caught with a fly in a drop of golden amber 300 million years ago

Inscribed by a glacier into a message on a boulder

Twinkling like a far-off galaxy in the vast starry night

Quiet behind this blue sky under which we children play