Finding "Too Misunderstood"

A narrative free form poem about the many crossroads of our journeys… when all purpose seems “Too Misunderstood”

…a poem by Harlon Rivers

…if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?   Photo Harlon Rivers 

Finding Too Misunderstood

Once there was a lost soul who felt too misunderstood   
It searched untiringly across the vast universe,
in query of an illusive, seemingly undiscoverable explanation.
It had become a lost alien in an unfamiliar,  ever- evolving world;
inhaling the caustic air of quintessential perplexity

Cast out by  mainstream conformity
Banished by a jury of peers,
“Too Misunderstood" set out alone
Searching the mystic skies;
seeking understanding of past unanswerable questions

As if the inspiration read from the greatest minds,
thoughts conceived by supreme intellectual spirits,
music stimulated by the greatest iconic performers,
evaded his simple mind’s quest for enlightened reasoning
Perception of truth...  

Frustration exhausted and consumed this soul's very existence,
so he hunched beneath a giant Old Growth Douglas Fir to rest in
that familiar place of comfort and safety,  isolated in solitude...
A place where so many answers had been discovered
while evaluating a soul's essence
during heightened emotional moments
of misunderstood sensitivity

The misunderstood soul hugged the sacred familiar ground,
where Mother Earth harbored her deeply grounded mysteries
The secrets held within her non-penetrated density, 
where a soul’s human form evolved from the
marrow of her deepest roots

"Too Misunderstood" embraced her earthly stature,
all the while, listening in contemplative stillness within 
Hoping beyond hope, the answers revealed would be sung
with the voices of the gentle whispering breeze.
The enormous tree wept rain drops
onto the porous thirsting soul beneath;
yielding to the energy of the spirit of nature...

She could only speak in assuaging tongues,
and yet, the soul that felt too misunderstood,
vividly felt the spirit of empathy
from compassionate understanding realms,
as a peaceful spiritual aura lingered
within the breadth of the sultry air...

In the awakening of a transcendent moment,
“Thunder” clapped from the heavens !!!
 
                        Kaboom!!!

... Spontaneously illuminating extraordinary brightness...

                        Kaboom!!!

...Explosive rumbling rolled!…Detonation of apathetic silence...

A bolt of lightning struck nowness...

The Giant Fir Tree was splintering!!!

Her mighty limbs came crashing down

in a sympathetic agony

of merciful surrender...

...Lightning struck the humbled, frightened soul…

...Flattening the human form to its knees...

...Enkindling awareness... 
                      from the threshold of benumbed consciousness...

At the confluence of an inciting passion
In the aftermath of indecision
In the haze of the smoldering vestige
of love's healing energy and splintered dust,
the too misunderstood soul
found peace of understanding within
the powerful presence of the moment's solitude

All truth’s infinite roots are eternally grounded
within the bedrock of the soul...

Harlon Rivers © 2012