A Nation
- Post By: Jason Santo
- Date:
- Category: flash fiction, photo, verse
iPhone 5 shot
These worries swimming inside a busy mind carry no shifting weight, the fulcrum centered between burden and effort so all outwit gravity’s tendency and hold steady at each fixed point, adjustments made at center for it is not locked down – it is not threatened.
The ground underfoot is steady, even as it rolls along with the change of a collective as diverse as veins of a leaf; itself a part of a perceived whole, but upon closer scrutiny, comprised of unique flesh, colored by nature partly to destined purpose and yet allowed to bend in the sunlight, absorbing life and reach while feeding into something that is indeed bigger protecting while nourished, loving as it grows. And so it’s all balance, the red of the single heart, the bond of white lacing connecting all, the inviting blue of sea and sky bordering every moment spent living in freedom.
Purpose isn’t chance, just the method of realizing individual angles to cup light, transform air, and flood every moment with our worth. Each a digit counted, all are the sum of a grand, complex equation both inelegantly selfish and devoted to larger kindness. It can be too presumptive, the order of these priorities and the gather of strength to enforce daily practice. And even from within, thorns will wrap around errant branches struggling to catch stream and rays of their own, pulling back with a tear at hard skin and wincing as the red bleeds into white, the pair diluting blue, a gray overcoming ashen faces turned to gathering clouds; fearful and yet cognizant that with each storm comes a cleansing rain and through baptism we will restore a true center.
It is a gift to share freedom on the limb extending to the sea, to relish the quiet moments outside of toil where salt spray teases each the tongue with each breath and short bursts of prismatic color dot the white cresting the blue, the red linking all of us to that instance of appreciation. For these are the colors of safety and to deny them is to lose sight of immeasurable good fortune.
There is no perfect home, but it’s within the crowded spread of great timber where a single frond can develop into something new and, by afforded grace, transform the aim of countless brothers and sisters without attack, stolen virtue or enforced apprehension. INstead, a read streak of passion calmed by the blue of rationality and the inviting white of all light – all hope – guides many as one, putting to rest small frets in these nervous minutes by framing them in hours of solace. Balance is struck even as the heights threaten to topple, and thought the winds blow, not all rustle.