What If...A Nightmare at 4:30 A.M.

What if you woke up one morning

and the sky was red

instead of blue?

The trees were gone, the grass

was white and all the flowers

stared at you?

What if you opened your door

to go outside and get the morning

paper, like you always do,

only there was no outside

your door

and no paper any more?

What if you turned on the TV to find out

what happened to your view,

And all the programs were talking

about you?

What would you do?

If you could do nothing about it

because you had no voice,

because you had no mouth,

And no sight, because you had no eyes

And no sound, because you had no ears

And no smell, because you had no nose

And no touch, because you had no body

Would it bother you?

Or would you just go back to bed?

What if your worst nightmare,

wasn't yet?

What if you died,

but weren't dead?

What if you didn't go to heaven

when you died,

or to hell,

but somewhere else?

What if every thought you had

ran down the pages of the telephone book

and smeared all the numbers so you couldn't

find anything fast anymore?

And then you forgot what that thought was?

What if the internet was reality,

and you weren't Tron

What if new research finally proved,

once and for all,

that eating

was the true cause of all sickness

and all death?

What if reality was finite and you found out

you were infinite

and infinite meant you would forever be

in error?

And no one cared anyway?

What if no one could ever ask inane questions

again because reality demanded absolute

obedience to the laws of Ohm?

And you didn't remember what Ohm was?

What if science fiction wasn't

And science fact wasn't

And evolution didn't

And creation never

And your mother and father truly loved you?

How would you explain your schisms?

If there were no therapists, no Freud, no Jung, no psychiatrists, because no one was crazy,

except you?

What if everyone took you seriously

when you were angry

and shot you on sight

for the things you said?

Would you be sorry for being dead?

What if every unkind thing you have ever done

was done to you

in one day

on your birthday?

Would that make you feel sad?

Or glad?

Or would you care?

Or would you just go back to bed?

At least you can sleep.

What if...

Artwumyn

©2002

Soul Search

I sit, I wait, in silence best
I center down my restlessness
I think on all life's mystery
If understanding come to me
I gratefully thank the one who is
For granting life and joy to give


I seek to find and entered, stay 
In fellowship with ancient ways
Whose wisdom is it's own reward
In truth, in love, in living toward
A path of peace where I must go
To journey towards the river's flow


For rivers flow both deep and wide
Their waters rush and sometimes hide
What lies beneath the flood and then
They sometimes hold their waters in
And stand in pools while levels deep
So life renews while rivers sleep


To understand the river's flow
One must beneath the surface go
To learn the depths and see the land
Through which the river's path must wind
For gently flowing rivers laze
Across both field and forest glade


A time for fish and insects like
To raise their young and live their life
Then when time has come for change
The river roars to life again
And taking with it in it's cage
Are all the deaths to which it sates


Until it's spent and pours it's breath
Into the sea and lies in death
And thus it ends, the river's life
And I in contemplation, rife
Through all I know to understand
What part I play in river's hand


I sit, I wait, in silence best
My soul renewed and now at rest

Artwumyn

©2002