The Great Orchestration
A poem about what truly matters.
Late-stage capitalism is very good at one thing above all others: convincing you that the only rhythm worth following is the one it sets.
Faster. More. Better. Prove it. Again.
This poem is the other rhythm. The one that was there before the system got hold of you, and the one that will remain when the quarterly earnings reports are long forgotten, and the applause has gone quiet.
I wrote it as a reminder, to myself as much as anyone, of what we’re actually here for. Of what no market crash can devalue and no corporation can extract.
The Great Orchestration
Our lives are like a symphony,
riding waves upon the ocean.
We rise and fall within the cosmic rhythm,
a dance of tides and time.
The tempo quickens
and we are tossed by stormy seas.
It slows
and we touch the stillness beneath the surface,
where silence sings of connection.
Waves come, waves go.
We crest, we fade
like the tides that kiss the shore,
like the breath that draws us in,
then releases us back into the blue.
After the exhale,
we return to the dark night of the deep
where all we loved,
all that ached and amazed us
melts into memory.
We cry out to the world:
“I was here
through triumph and tragedy,
in love and in loneliness.
Did you see me? Did you feel me?”
And the world whispers back:
“Yes. I was with you.
Through every rise,
every fall,
I held your heartbeat in mine.
I will carry your song
in my tides for eternity.”
But even the sweetest notes must fade.
All things must pass
returning to the vastness
from which they were born.
This is the exhale of life.
This is the great orchestration.