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Why do we live?
Why do we die?
Do we live so that we can die?
Do we die so that someone can live?
Should we smile after we have cried?
Should we cry for those who will always be in our hearts,
and who we will always be with?
To forget is not in our nature;
to remember is in our blood;
to pay tribute is like creating a door;
to memorialize the fallen is to keep alive the memory
of those who once ran, walked, waited, stood;
to wear a symbol of respect and remembrance
is a hopeful token that costs nothing,
but is worth more than any money could buy;
to feel and to think about what someone must have been through
is a wonderful thing;
to glimpse even for a second that which
someone may rather try to hide
shows you in a glaring and glorious light;
to lay down a flower, a wreath, a thought,
even if you are doing so for those
who will always be a complete stranger,
is like a burst of colour in a field
on a beautiful day in spring.
Every fallen hero had a life-time of dreams;
every child fears the monsters of their nightmares;
every man and woman marching forward to a beat
knows what loyalty and duty means;
everyone who does what they can for someone in need
knows that life for all its magic and beauty
is not always fair.
Every person can make a difference;
every person we meet can be a guardian angel;
every person can be a guiding presence;
every person’s reputation precedes them,
and whether they know it or not
that sense of who they are
is always floating on the surface of a perceptual ocean,
until it rises fully and becomes visible.
There can be only one life for everybody;
there can be only one body for every life;
there can be lots of ways to remember someone,
and one of the best ways is to keep thinking about them,
to keep loving them, and whenever you look for someone
and need someone they are who you will see,
and they will be always a part of the dreams that you have at night.
When we take our final step on our life’s path,
and we step to the side, and stop and watch
the rest of the world, the rest of the universe, pass us by,
we can rest, we can be at peace, we can shine,
and be there for our loved ones,
like we have always been looked on and protected
by those who came before us who reside in the light of the stars,
that is when we realize that we never leave each other,
because we are always together-
no matter how close, or distant;
no matter how near, or far.
The sky is glowing;
the fields are bright green;
the trees are swaying;
the morning sunshine
is making everything look more beautiful
than I have ever seen.
The birds are singing;
the ladybirds are foraging;
the flowers are blooming;
the spirit of nature is renewing.
The wind is blowing;
the people are smiling;
the children are laughing;
the dogs are barking;
the cats are resting;
even those who have a job to do
are thoroughly enjoying being awake and alive-
looking, talking, rushing, walking,
evolving, and soaring.
The colours are vibrant;
the music is slow;
the energy all around is more tangible and potent
than you could ever want;
the liquid refreshments continue to flow.
The bells at the turn of the hour ring out;
the statues of metal and stone
look as if they are about to come to life;
there is ice-cream being eaten hurriedly before it melts;
there is the potential of a hopeful and happy future
to be seen in every shared like and dislike.
The lovers are loving;
the readers are reading;
the listeners are listening;
the searchers are searching.
The air is warm to the touch;
the unseen and unnoticed heroes and angels
are doing what they always do,
and are gifting as many people as they can
with hope, joy, love, and fun.
Caring about the well-being of another has never meant as much;
everyone and everything is thankful
as they smile and say hello to the sun.
On a morning walk down the city high-streets,
passed countless people, passed shops,
stores, restaurants of all names,
I am stopped in my tracks instantly when I see
a Golden Gunslinger reading a book
while sitting at the foot of a tree.
I’m not sure how long he had been there,
I’m not sure what he was thinking,
but when I looked at him looking down at his book,
to me, the gunslinger looked
as if he didn’t have a care in the world,
and it seemed as if to the gunslinger
the rest of the world could carry on their way
because he was lost in thought, in state,
and frozen in time, but like a performer at a carnival,
the gunslinger sat with a tin pot
just to the left of his right boot
asking politely of his generous passer-by
for a token of interest, fascination, respect,
and a thought to show that they care.
I sat in-awe of the gunslinger on a bench nearby,
and I even took a picture-
I felt like I was looking back in time,
or as if the gunslinger had been transported to the future,
to our present-
and as I sat looking at him, the sun shone brightly on him,
and made him glow even more golden,
and he looked even more amazing than he did before,
and even the sky above looked even more blue.
I thought long and hard about approaching the gunslinger
and putting some money in his pot,
and I wondered what he would do if I did-
would he lower his book? Draw his gun and take a shot?
The incredible living-statue of the gunslinger
that mesmerised me, painted head to toe in gold,
in himself was a work of art-
he was so brilliant to behold,
because as soon as I saw him I was instantly transported
back in time to my childhood,
and my fantasies of wanting to be a cowboy.
The Golden Gunslinger was like a living photograph
of a time of adventure and a reminder of the heroes
and out-laws that fill the stories of the Wild West
that once was in America that for so many
still holds a special place in their heart;
The Golden Gunslinger reminded me of how care-free
and amzing it is to a child, or someone who acts on and follows
their instinctual passions-
whether you are a man, or a woman, a girl, or a boy.
As time caught up with me,
even though in all the time I was sitting there looking at
the gunslinger he did not move an inch,
I realised that it was time for me to move on.
I decided to approach the gunslinger and give him a coin
from my pocket to repay him for his time,
his inspiration, his generosity, and his golden spirit,
and even as I got closer and closer
he still didn’t look up or look away from his book
and didn’t for a second flinch;
and then, as soon as my £2 coin hit the rest of the coins
in his golden pot and made a sound,
The Golden Gunslinger suddenly came alive
and he looked up at me-
he lifted his left hand to touch the rim of his Stetson,
he looked right into my eyes, and I saw him smile
without him having to move his lips at all,
and he bowed his head slightly,
and it was in that moment that I smiled too
in appreciation, and I too began to shine as the sun shone.
As I stepped back the gunslinger reverted back
to the pose in which I first saw him,
and he immediately went back to his prefered-posture
of reading his book, at-ease against the base of his tree;
while I turned to my right and continued to walk down the high-street-
I didn’t look back, but I knew and I was so glad to have met him,
to have given him my time, and for him to have given his time to me
and to everyone who saw him, because he reminded me
in lots of ways of myself, and he was obviously someone
of great patience and a deep-thinker.
I promised myself to capture this moment that would never come again
in as much detail and with as much meaning as I could,
and I also promised that I would never forget
The Golden Gunslinger.
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”-
the first words spoken by Neil Armstrong
when he became the first man to set foot on the Moon;
since I first heard those electrifying and spell-binding words
when I was a child
I have repeated them to myself from time to time,
so much so that those infamous words
have become more and more meaningful to me,
and they have become the words that are always on my mind.
What NASA, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins,
committed to achieving and achieved on July 21st, 1969,
were the first steps in a new age of human endeavour, accomplishment,
and optimism, that may still be progressing at the pace of a walk;
however what has happened as a result of the success
of the Apollo 11 mission and its crew can already be seen all over the world
in what has been a relatively short length of time.
Neil Armstrong embodied hope,
Neil Armstrong embodied adventure,
Neil Armstrong embodied the wonder of looking through a telescope,
Neil Armstrong embodied the best of all men and women-
that which makes us all look up at the sky and reach towards the future.
I wish I could have been alive to see the live televised broadcast
of the moment when Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon on a black and white TV-
the people that saw this extraordinary and super-human accomplishment
before their eyes must have been so overwhelmed,
they must have felt like they too were walking on the moon!
What a feeling of hope must have been in the air between everyone,
what a sight it must have been to see!
Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11,
from the moment that they were launched into space,
set into motion a new world that, to this day and forever,
will define the legacy of the entire Human race.
Space is not the final frontier,
space is but the first frontier in a universe of boundless possibilities-
that for every answer that we uncover about it
it brings up another ten more questions,
and for every galaxy that we discover
we find more planets orbiting around stars very similar to Earth
and our own sun.
Like most people that I admire,
I was never fortunate enough to actually meet Neil Armstrong;
but that did not impede me from being inspired by him,
it did not stop me from seeing myself in him,
and it has not stopped thousands, millions, of other people
from all around the world to follow in his footsteps-
as astronauts will continue to do so in the future
when they first set foot on Mars,
and they will no longer need to imagine
what it must have felt like to be him.
Neil Armstrong will never be forgotten,
his spirit still lives in the heart of us all,
and one day what he began with his first foot-step on the Moon
will carry humanity beyond our planet to the stars!
Where we will prosper, where we will evolve, and where we will shine!
One day, because of Neil Armstrong, because of our need to better ourselves,
humanity will achieve universal greatness-
because of our legacy, because of our first steps,
because of our giant leaps,
that were taken for us all by great heroes
for all mankind.
The Life, the Light, the Tears, of the Poet of the Sphere 