What Makes a Life Alive

What makes a life alive
and alive a life?
Is it breath,
Touch, or sight?
Or is it,
action, word and deed?
Is it compassion,strength,
or loss?
Or is it,
motion, choice and need?


What is it, precisely,
which makes you, you & me,
and me?

Do we not,
You and I, come --
from the same,
vast place?

Are we not --,
I and you,
Rather, quite the same?

Not exact,
In body, or in mind,
But what of that, which,
Brings forth all life?

What of that inner most part,
which,
in us, is
deeply linked
To our fight
Not of today,
nor of tomorrow,
But rather, that which,
unites
you and I -- I and you,
More,
than our hands, arms,
or feet,
Beyond,
Choice,
Thought
and creed?

For do we not, us all, extend –
Past this human design?

What if, we, are in truth --

Floating, in the air,
burning, with the sun,
Swaying, like the leaves,
Ebbing, through the waves ?

If we were to listen to that voice,
& remember, the silence
Which brought us here
& in stillness,
will, one day, --
glide us back --
To night.