Creekside, helpless

Alone I sit beside a tree
Which sits beside a creek.
A lonely man stares back at me:
He looks, but does not speak.

Relieved, I nod in thanks to him,
His silence is a gift.
When he nods back, I grab a limb,
Release it, watch it drift.

It's journey is my focus now;
My new friend? Left behind.
I watch the twig with furrowed brow.
Our fates are intertwined.

It floats, gets caught in rocks, then, free,
Is sent over a fall
I run beside, trip, scrape my knee;
I search for what I saw

I wait beyond the dam's short drop
For my stick to emerge.
I squint into the stream, then stop.
It must still be submerged.

I sigh, and before I return
Look upward toward the sky
Thus, missed it safely leave the churn
Yes, that's a nice, fine lie.

A twig that I did not see crushed
Must still be floating, see?
I think this and my friend (still hushed)
Shrugs sadly back at me.

Escapism

Like lovesick girls who read and live in tales
Of princes who will whisk them far away
Across the sea in ships with unfurled sails
To royal palaces where they will stay.

We all create these little Shangri-Las
But childish's whimsey's for a child's mind.
The danger is when adults fear a loss
And still create a dreamland we can find.

These fantasies may not be of a place
But of beliefs, and a reality.
Which, while comforting still bears no trace
Of what our finish line, in truth, should be.

Accepting truly where we need to be
May yet reveal a path we did not see.