One Spark

by Blake Ofstedal

ONE SPARK

We weren’t created to live like this

Animals in a cage of our own design

Filling

Our bodies with products chemically

Designed to simulate the happiness

We’ve forgotten how to create

Building

Entire economies around wounding

The only known life-bearing world

In this inexplicably large universe

Staring

At tiny glowing rectangles and squares

While the miracle of evolution that our souls inhabit

Withers into oblivion

Begging

For a life jacket of tactility

As the never-ending rip current of ones and zeros

Pull us further and further from

Our spiritual connection with this majestic geoid

We don’t have to live like this

Animals in an ignorance of our own design

And we won’t

Our species, in all its flawed beauty,

Has the unique ability to absorb and evolve

An intrinsic voracity for processing information

Precipitating constant cycles of destruction

And restoration

Much like a bolt of intense energy fires down from the heavens

Razing thousands of acres of mature forest and

Leaving in its wake, the vital nutrients and

Latitude for the sun’s nourishing rays to penetrate

And create anew

Our collective enlightenment needs but a spark

That lands and takes hold

So keep sparking.

BLAKE OFSTEDAL

Blake Ofstedal has been writing creatively for most of his life, but he decided to delve into the world of poetry earlier this year. He does most of his writing in the solace of the wilderness, which is reflected in the transcendentalist and naturalist themes running through his work. You can follow Blake @BlakeTypeWrites on Instagram, where he displays new pieces on his 1952 Smith Corona Silent typewriter.