Some respond to perturbation
With a slight smile and affirmative nod
They take in beauty or joy
As a neutral sip of water
I yet feel the surge
Powerful waves of emotion
Charged by each moment's caprice
Crashing in most trusted company
Freedom to follow my sail's winds
Alone or with deepest friend
Normalcy facade a theater
Exhausting manufactured blankness
Society's membership cost
Paid in studious certainty
An expense paid grudgingly
From deeply feeling souls
Searching for conditions
Where tilting openly shared
Is the power matched to the challenge
At a table set for vigor
Experience leads me to equilibrium
Bearable detente maintained
Life as the living
No longer the struggling
Echoes of thunderstorms live on
In third cups of coffee and glorious days
Called to unsafe gallops up high mountains
Yet contented with full belly under every sky
Roman Ryan 