Writing is self-therapy,
a way to express what to me is true – 
maybe not empirically provable,
or scientifically viable,
but true in how it has shaped me
and where it brings me to new awareness.

Skies are canvases painted by the Eternal One,
birds are winged messengers from beyond,
trees breathe and shimmer as though a poem.

Mountains rise in praise of Great Spirit,
oceans teem with diversity, singing glory in many voices,
creatures great and small are all our relations.

I am a minor player on life’s stage.

No one will remember me in a hundred years.
What I’ve written will be lost to time.

For a moment though, I am a witness to life,
aware of the cloud of witnesses who have preceded me,
aware that we are all held in the eternal embrace
of an Inexhaustible Love that has no beginning or end,
aware that we are intimately bound together 
across borders and walls and geopolitical lines
and that we in our finitude cannot undo what is timeless.

All of life is one.

When worry or fear seduce me,
taunting me with my insignificance,
I go in search of pen and paper
where I can strip away the pretense
of having any of this figured out.

Because for me
at the end of the day
it is enough to know
truly know

I have been loved.

Mark Lloyd Richardson
August 2025