Two Fleeings

In this day
and this age
we have seen two
great and immense
fleeings from ourselves.

We have stolen the
fire two more times.

The use of petroleum
and all of its by-products
has flung us beyond
our own space and time.
We can travel well beyond
the boundaries of our skin
and village with a speed that
is unprecedented.

This is our first fleeing.

The development of cyber
travel has opened our minds
to billions of points of
light and dark, burning themselves
into the cones of our eyes and
the neurons of our heart.  We are
seared with endless movement.

This is our second fleeing.

We have lost our hunger
for our own being, our own nature;

the one that is fed in breathing slowly
at the foot of a tall stand of pines,
swaying in the howling wind at sunset.

We can go anywhere and
know anything.  We can go anywhere
except within.  We can know anything
except ourselves.

In this day have we truly
found progress, or just another
way of avoiding the still
point at the center of the
universe of our own nature -
the empty space between our
heart and the Creative Father's?