to a friend i long have missed

where have you recluded, secluded?

perhaps escape, self imposed isolation 

banishment for pro tem, 

due the crushes of the world's vice,

its squeeze of human soul?

you must know of pristine places

accessible but difficult to reach with all their beauty

may as well be on mars rather than on this earth 

perhaps its there you've gone

given our fleshly limitations, including those barriers,

walls erected by vicious men, steel and trench

guns and dogs, bureaucracy and detention camps

barbed wire and starvation in every border crossing nation

is it possible you've dared to cross and reached your goal?

those pristine places on every hemisphere

those riches of candy jewels of this biosphere to the eye should be ours

we be human, born into this earth, inheritors, but kept at bay

by the jealous greed in the poison atmosphere

i hope you've made it there somehow

candy jewels to your eye, untasted but by few of human tongues,

all upon the earth our sphere of birth, everywhere exist 

their gleaming beams of light, i hope you might fully behold

most of us, we're stuck at jobs and imposed pursuits, 

forced by hunger pangs

those sweet jewels, we can only imagine,

hold in our sleep, our dreams, yet forever out of reach

due our weakness, harsh fallen, softened tortured state

cannot fully access, never will 

those candied gems may as well be outside our solar system

nature's treasures belong to us, but we can't ever have them now

our lives too short, temporal breaths and aspirations almost nil

death awaits at every bend, hostage held

another bomb went off in the world today 

made me want to rocket off, rid of this place

trapped as victims, 

we tame nature, create habitats with technology

most earth's teeming millions, most in poverty live 

escape is outside ourselves

so, my friend, like you I seek the peace of nature, 

himalayas perhaps, are where you've gone, 

frigid cold for me, not as easy to survive and so i rather seek

a dry desert, hostile place no doubt

cactus thorns, poison plants, animals that kill you, 

scorching heat, torrid barren, mammalian body is no match

just like bombs out of the sky, 

just like bullets, by surprise, 

not by reason or by rhyme, 

at any given time, nonetheless can kill you

this desert biome albeit deadly barren 

sports candied jeweled landscapes that the eyes bedazzle 

albeit in short order, will torment and kill you, 

but in the least, before i go, i'll view 

the colored sunset of her blazing, setting sun

there is peace of mind there that cannot die

escape is there from fellow mankind,

escape from myself

let the poison plants and animals kill me then