Mixin It Up
So I’m losing a battle with the Zambian internet, as I’ve tried every day to attach some pictures, but my browser crashes. So here’s a few pics from Macha, and I’ll be taking some in Mazabuka this week. I also thought I’d mix it up w/ 2 poems – one written before departure, and one last week. I wonder if you can guess which is which!
—
Anchored to center, it all links
Tightly coupled like wind and rain.
Aware of stormy horizons, yet defiantly rooted in calm.
Sun blinds, roots climb, reaching vines.
Inside out with pure reflection,
A glassy surface of competence veils
The murky depths of vulnerability.
Not without character. Not without fear either.
Drops in the bucket punch above their weight –
Rippling emotions gather momentum, fluctuations ajar.
Come up for air, open your eyes.
Lungs fill as the room overflows with noise,
Unforgettable tune of a newborn’s first.
Bucket tips, tension lifts, future’s waiting in the mist.
Another sunset brings peace. Closure to the thought.
Life is in the living.
View from my Bedroom in Choma
Sunset shot of children by the borehole
A family who had come to get screened for Malaria at a Rural Health Post
—
It’s easy to stay in the room, safe behind the closed door.
What would it take to turn the handle?
To walk the corridor of fear and emerge into uncertainty?
Confidence is a dagger sheathed under my pant leg –
To concede it is to be open to vulnerability.
Unsteady, unstable, wavering, tottering, falling, afraid.
A mistake is an event, the full extent of which you have yet to turn to your advantage.
Learning is in the journey, yearning to be free of this gurney.
Stand present to the image, the future emerging through the mirror.
If a seed is a gateway, then what am I?
A runway, a road. A footpath, a front door.
Over a continent, across an ocean.
Yet constrained by the same chains I chose to pack.
The marraige of the heard and heart is the first to divorce.
I am my own best evader, as thought’s labrynth whisks me away –
Out of view of the abyss of deeper knowing.
I’m lost on the journey, but not without guidance.
Lost on the journey, but awake to humanity.
On the journey, exploring every moment.
The journey, inwards.
Living in the Moment 
Somehow, to me, both poems can be from both pre-dep and last week.
Nice pictures! 😀
Hey Mike! Beautiful pics! Especially the one of your bedroom view. This makes me wish I was there with you man!
Regarding your second poem, I really like how you see being lost as a good thing. To me, being lost in search for deeper insights is what makes everyday so exciting. I really believe that having a adventurous attitude is much better than rigorously following plans that do not take into account your new experiences everyday.
Anyways, hope everything is going smoothly in Zambia.
Take care,
Saifu
second poem is goin in am i right it doen’t matter i was lookin forward to just reading your blogs but now you know how to write poems so it will be expected there be alittle one each time but then your thougts as you write from the far away adventure is a poem real life as real as it gets good luck stay healthy and the pics were perfect..Love from all of us here.
Hey Mike,
Awesome pictures. It’s good to see you’re feeling more confident, if not overly so. One of my favourite teachers – he was a great guy and really really good at his job – once told me that although he’d had decades of experience and was published and worked in many places, part of him was still afraid that someone was going to figure out one day that he was just pretending to know what he was doing.
It goes to show that everyone experiences doubt once in a while. Don’t let it get the best of you, and don’t let it take away your drive.
We’re all confident in you, dude!
All the best. 🙂
First off, the sunset shot is epic! Good job! As for the poems, I’m gonna say the second one is pre-departure.
Enjoy!