Zen

Saturday, September 13, 2014

I press the button

And hear the distant sound

Of machines and cables
bringing up or down

The cage I need

This vertical lift

We ride to and from

Destinations marked out

On no road maps

The elevation marked
on no altimeter

But rather inside my head

Where I leave marks

Of my own importance

The way my uncles did

In pencil on the dinning room

Door frame when I was small

To see how much I’d grown

Though now I am no taller

Yet still need to measure

How high I stand,

If I have lost stature

And how to get it back if I have

Who I am reflected

Not in any mirror

But on the faces of those I see

Through the small window

Of my cage

As I travel floor by floor,

My life measured

In the groan of cables

Above and below

When all I really want

Is to be where I am

At any given moment,

Free of the need to be

High or low,

Rich or poor,

Powerful or powerless,