This poem comes from the Crowdfunding Creative Jam.  It was inspired by shadows_gallery.

This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $.50 per line, so $5 will reveal 10 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses.  In this case, I'll go ahead and post the first verse, although there are unsponsored lines in it. 

Sponsors include: shadows_gallery, general fund, janetmiles, kyleri

FULLY FUNDED
46 lines, Buy It Now = $20
Amount donated = $18
Verses posted = 5 of 7
Amount remaining to fund fully = $2
Amount needed to fund next verse = $1
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $1

It is not the change itself that causes pain:
our bodies are malleable and it's an easy matter
to morph into some other configuration,
making muscle and bone and organ tissue
out of formerly amorphous material.

Yet once we have changed,
we must leave the safe harbor of our ship
and walk among them, strange gibbering apes
that throng across the surface of this 'Earth'
that they call home.

That is what hurts,
the crippling pressure of their expectations
trying to crush the Light out of us --
relentless demands to ignore the Truth
that all souls are One,
all minds hold a piece of What Is,
all land is Holy.

This is the inescapable agony of being
human, even in seeming,
a torment like red-hot walls
pressing against every inch of flesh
and burning the brands of bitter ideas
deep into our essence.

The more we look like them,
the harder it is to remember
that they are all quite insane
and that a life without pain is possible.
The longer we live among them,
the more like them we tend to become --
there have been scouts who lost themselves
in the misery of it and never returned,
gone native or driven to take their own lives
or murdered for a slip of the enlightened tongue.

Sometimes, the apes decorate their tall buildings
with the images of our martyrs,
repeating those wisps of wisdom to each other
even as they continue to torture their world
and their people, actions horribly at odds with words.

Only one thing makes it worthwhile
to endure such agony:
it is the very nature of light to go forth into darkness,
as the Sun sheds its golden rays across each solar system
and the Universe cradles night in starry arms.
For no matter how deeply a seed lies buried,
something within its shell
ever yearns upward toward the Light.

Tags: cyberfunded creativity, poem, poetry, reading, science fiction, spirituality, writing
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