Random Hiking Photos from 2008

Edge of the oncoming storm – Castle Rock State Park – 6/22/2008

LaSalle Canyon Waterfall – Starved Rock State Park – 9/14/2008

Poem – “In the Infinite Moment”

Poem.  Mostly free thought.  This is mainly for myself, but…  well, enjoy :)

“In the Infinite Moment”

Curtain the future.
Eclipse your plans with nonsense.

Roll in the mud of life.
Make sticky love.

Run naked through the cold April rain.
I promise we’ll all notice.

Be like the bee.
Bumble through lazy days.

Sing at the top of your lungs.
Sing until your throat burns.

Be a narcissist.
If only before your mirror.

Dance like the firefly.
Shine brief, shine bright.

For today,
in this infinite moment,
you are all that you are
and everything everyone else
never will be.

Russ Legear – May 2008

“Walls”

Tonight I’m going to do something I’ve never done before.  I’m going to write a poem on my blog.  This poem is mostly free-thought; I have a habit of revising until what I’ve originally penned and what actually emerges are totally different things.  I don’t want to do that tonight.  Tonight I’m just going to be me: dark, depressing, and (mostly) unedited.

“Walls”

It somehow seems base that I
would put pen to paper on a topic so abused
as walls.
You’d think they would all be smashed by now,
little more than gravel on sun-starved earth
from the incessant didactic discourse
of every lame-ass poet before me.
But here they are towering in my mind, in my life, in
my soul.
Covered in thorned vines; dark, grey, lifeless,
the walls I put up of morter and clay,
bitter blood and failed fantasies.
And the walls of those close to me,
equally high and intimidating.
After a while I just stare and stare,
my fingernails cracked open, flesh red and raw from
stretching, scrabbling, clawing toward understanding.

In the end,
all I can see are two people, panting,
listening to the endless echoes of their screams
as they try to break free.  Hoping, dreaming
of the day when a torrid howl from the one
they care about will leak through the barrier…
even if but a hint of a whisper.

-Russ Legear, May 2008