It*

Don’t think about It.
It is too pure, too much fun.
It interferes with your best laid plans.
It makes a mockery of the daily shuffle of papers,
the minutia that constitutes everyday existence.

Don’t think about It.
It is too beautiful, too filled with ecstasy.
Ignore the soul of the sequoia.
Nevermind the simmering, seething, libidinous caldera.
Forget the bristlecone pine, the silent sentinel of centuries.
Be careful not to ponder the dizzying height of Half Dome.
For all these carnal delights are too powerful,
the transcendence within them too infinite.

They may change you,
Make you more,
Make you see,
Let you breathe.

What could happen is too frightening to consider.
You might find yourself happy for an instant.
You may lose yourself in the moment, in the present.

Which is heavier, the ephemeral wisp of memory
of a clandestine rendezvous, so sweet and real,
or the daily onus of never knowing what could have been,
tied to your neck like a lodestone monolith?