What is this thing driving me?
Is it the same instinct that sends the salmon
Swimming from the sea to the river to spawn?
Or is it similar to the imprinting of the migratory patterns of the birds?
Is it what causes the acorn to become the oak or is it
What turns the seeds into grains, flowers, or plants?
Is it what awakens the bear suddenly from its winter sleep
Feeling the pangs of hunger and departing the cave
In ravenous search of the needed nourishment?
Am I like the whale navigating the deep water
Of the ocean by the sounds I cannot hear just yet,
Or am I within the water like a sea of grass
Ferried floating by the currents and the tides?
Why is everything so seemingly still?
Adrift. Betwixt and between. So many questions.
Like the lost rider who drops the reins so that the horse
Will find the way home, I know it is not in my hands.
I cannot touch it, but I feel it strongly
As it constantly appears, disappears, and reappears.
Why must one become so lost in order to become found?
I gather wood for the pyre of the Hero and with a single spark,
The flickering flames light leaping and laughing.
I see it again in the rising smoke and wonder
What is this thing driving me, driving me?
~ Margie Miller (Library Member)
