Only once in our brief flickering amongst our fellow mourners are we shown where to find our own hearts. We are shown without reason when it is all we need, and our wants are simplistic necessities.

And as we grow we learn to hide it, lest we be hurt by the clumsy intrusions of those who love us for a while. We hide it so deeply that by the time we become wary of our own feelings, we can no longer find it.

So we spend the rest of our time trying to find our hearts so we can remember how to smile. Eventually time manages to lure us close to the grave, and as our bodies go into shutdown, we begin to forget the harshness of this agonising dream called existance. We forget so many things as we begin to hurry to our ending, that even the barriers we ourselves place to avoid being hurt, begin to crumble. And, if we are lucky, we find our hearts anew.

But it is too late to help us through the myriad of confusion we have spent our time living. Too late to show us that we MUST feel to understand.

Such is the contradiction of our gleaming. For nobody ever explained that understanding is the wage of the caring, or that misery is the only alternative to laughter.

(C) Ron Lee 1995

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