Blind to the Beauty

Breath released in air

Evanescent in its rise

Fades away... it's gone.

At 6 AM, the first traces are detected.

Sun beams burst out over eastern horizons and stun the sky with color.

The darkness begins to give way to light and, at the other end of this city,

we begin to stir.

Our rise, however, is far less gallant.

We begin that headlong march to which we've grown oh so accustomed:

Day by day,

Week by week,

Month by month,

Year by year,

Cradle to coffin and back again.

We make our way out of beds, out of homes, into cars and buses and trains or onto foot as we release breaths which will fade away into the still somewhat darkened sky which lies above us.

It has become an unmoving schedule to which we adhere almost religiously,

and I'm not saying that this is a bad thing.

As far as I'm concerned, a little bit of routine in a world this unpredictable is at least as beneficial as it can be stagnant.

Here's the part that gets to me, though:

By the time the clock strikes twelve, less than half of us will still remember the way that those orange and yellow and pink rays swirled and mixed with the darkened colors of the early morning sky to create this brilliant sunrise.

As we uniformly march through these streets, toward jobs and schools and other daily practices far too numerous to list,

We somehow miss all that passes by our eyes.

In this fashion, stock boys, street workers, and CEOs go about their lives:

Not looking up at the sunrise---

Not paying attention to the peripheral---

Not noticing the beauty---

...And not seeing each other.

And I can't say that I always do, but I can say this:

We need to open our eyes and try to see again

Because it hasn't always been like this...

There have been times when a sunrise didn't go unnoticed.

There have been times when we watched our breath disappear.

You see, to go through life and not notice the beauty is to be blind...

And I can't stand not to see.