Page 56 - PDF Flip TR Program Demo

Integrity isn’t an instinct. It isn’t innocence. It’s a conscious decision. It’s taking what we’ve lost, what experience has taken away from us, and fighting to get it back over a long life.
Integrity isn’t a cliché or a statement. It’s too tough to be easily reduced. Integrity is what happens between the lines.
RAKING LEAVES
Face your dreams,
The ones with flying apes As themes. Put away
The toys, the fears,
The desolate unmarried
Years. Let what seems To be take hold. Shape The scene with day. Put away the souvenirs Of truth, the harried
Glaze of war,
The tokens of your injured Youth, clichéd in time
To rainy afternoons
And broken lives.
Focus rather on the roar Of sun, the random bird, Falling snow, the rhyme And ripple in the dunes, The throw that drives
The game, accidents
Of fortune, twists
Of flame, burning shadows Into night,
The turn of chance,
Island air that hints Of sea and mists, Solar haloes,
The certain light Of stars that dance
Like curtains in the wind The dreams of women, Filled with presents, Food, and children— And realize
That leaves begin
In deeper seasons:
An accumulated essence, A cosmic sermon,
Broken lessons in the skies.
—Peter Halstead
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