Eastern OrthodoxPoetryTheology & Spirituality

According to the Preacher

According to the preacher
We spend our lives chasing the wind

The circle of life is not
The strong devouring the weak
It’s each of us devouring himself
Never getting full
But getting ever emptier

We spend our lives becoming
Enormous windbags

Work, it does a body good
Building it up so there’s
More to rot away after
Our balloon has popped
The wind knocked out of us

Without empty chests
We could have no life

Food that fills leaves us
Pooped but wanting more
And drink makes us think
We have ascended but
We fall and cannot get up

Always leave room inside
To swallow the whirlwind

You know all about wisdom
Get as much as you can
And you learn you know
Less than you ever did
An empty space in your head

Empty your mind because
The answer is blowing in the wind

Add numbers to your age
If you live to be old and ripe
You just begin to rot away
Spread your sails when you are
Young and not blown yet

Save your breath and it will
Be wind beneath angels’ wings

That sucking sound we make
When we sob with sorrow
That is us catching the wind
The only thing we should
Be filled with in this life

It is only when we are truly empty
That the wind of the spirit blows in

Kenneth O'Shaughnessy

Kenneth O'Shaughnessy

A Northerner by upbringing, Kenneth has lived in the South since his (first) college days. After returning to college, he began to do more than just dabble with writing, and has self-published a children's picture book, a middle-reader's book, and several collections of poetry. Baptized in the Roman Catholic church, raised in the fundamentalist Baptist church, and having spent time in the Reformed Baptist church, Kenneth settled down in the Eastern Orthodox church in 2006.

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