Salt Flats

Somewhere far from the Atacama Desert,

Between the Sierra Nevada and the Appalachians,

Is located the land of Zion, and next to it, a dead sea.

Standing as witness to the expanding fusion,

Of Water, Earth, Death and Sky,

I realized that I was enraptured by a paradoxical illusion.

This illusion, a treasure of the nation,

Drawing both dreamers and scholars,

Was of the deceptively deep, the infinite shallows.

Shallow hallowed grounds reflecting infinite sky,

Earth indistinguishable from sky, and I, another I,

Following my every step in this mysterious mirror.

Looking at this man, I wondered if he was trapped in a sub-verse,

Whilst I dwelt in the heavens, rooted to the terrestrial,

Imagined what it might be like if our positions were reversed.

Would I feel admiration, compassion, envy, rage,

For the man who walked above me?

Would I demand to be made equals, set free from my gilded cage?

Or would I realize that his existence predicates and defines mine?

And hope that when he leaves this place, hallowed ground it may be,

That he’ll carry a little reflection of me and this place in his mind.

So that when next he looks upon his neighbor,

And is tempted to do so in disdain,

He’ll remember his old reflection, and further that, my pain,

That the pain will melt his heart, turn ice-stone to glass,

The hurricane of fury, churning, gaining mass,

Will cast its eye to peace, to infinitely shallow remission,

And relent entirely from its destructive position.

Between the head and the heart, it’s hard to pronounce who should be king,

It’s more important to be correct than it is to be compassionate,

But correction without compassion is worth almost nothing.