Beauty & Pain in love

Sometimes I wonder why I do this

What keeps the machine running?

Surely it's something.

I feel like I'm doing something

Whatever this is.

Whatever is sneaking to the most remote places I have access to,
& writing things like this.

Then I think about why I did anything before this,
& I remember my best friends.

& before that,
it was walking in the woods.

& before that,
it was catching frogs in the stream,

& before that, it was the kind embrace of the birdsong in the trees.

At the core of it all, there has always been beauty.

I remember,

I remember that there is hope because there is beauty.

They always go together somehow.