A TAOIST’S LAMENT

People are swarming
like frenetic bumble bees
on this November day,
preparing for holidays
with family they wish
would go away.

Strangers in a strange land,
no one can sit in solitude.

They’re bored as Generals
without a war, seeking refuge
in buying things they’ll never use.

They spice up lives of banality,
with driving to and fro.

Their carbon footprints
are knocking out the stars.

They haunt the malls
for bargain racks, and toys for tots.

They waddle along with sad-sack faces,
gorging on hot-cinnamon buns
they do not taste.

Avoiding consciousness by a flight into activity,
they fail to discover the sacred in the ordinary.

Mindless agitation and ennui, a barrier,
to finding the God within.

Only one six year old, innocently
joyous, is gleefully present,
as a Princess of autumnal colors,
buried up to her neck by father,
in a golden pile of leaves.