And locked like the rest
In dirt driven fantasy, dreams, and wishes;
Longing for a Turning Point, I goad an earthy
Chariot drafting at the rear of blind horses.

But there is none: Turning Point, that is.
Because life, as I gallop here, turns my spirit on its own
Points, juxtaposed against the links
That bind me to their hooves
While the huge wheels turn.

Flesh apart, but close as a rooster's crow
Locked in passage, I am to them, equidae,
As I am to thee. Not like balsam in a frothing ocean,
But a little more or less directed like golden threads
In my Taoist cape that hides the epiphany within.

We, the horses, chariot, and dust cling to each other,
Concentric in our Eden's roundabout ways,
Shadowed by the cape woven into
an impersonal pattern of Enochian infinity,
gold and royal blue, while still we go forth
around a closed track.

Rushed in a moon walk, hurried in a daze,
My truths are steps behind my misunderstandings
While hooves out front await a shift in the reins.
Nothing learned I from my zodiac start, that I'd be driven to
Wheels only of my choosing while the Epiphany I ride toward
Is not at the next bend.

It is in the works of a larger pattern that weaves me to
My reins, my chains, my dust and thee: we with feelings,
The rest without, but loving us just the same. It will make me
Ask to see once the edges of the pattern stitched into forever; as if
Asking for so little is asking too much, or in receiving an answer
I might know even less.

For gratitude in doing, and praising through my needs, is all the
Epiphany experienced once always, and dragged behind like a
Loose thread dangling.

We care only for each other while Source shines through us:
Making our sorrow its matrix, our suffering its comedy, our drama
Its romance; trading off a fleshy orgasm
As the closest thing to its far away love. And we
Accept as inevitable its need for us as much as
Soundings for wind around brass chimes.

Content to pyramid downward an undaughtered self
To stretch from fingertip to fingertip an ersatz sacrifice
Careless of the children of China, teetering on the brink
Of half consciousness, untimely in its beginnings, Source
Looked on all and thought that it was good.

But Celtic Epiphany, my Turning Point, Salvation, and the
Road to Damascus, will recreate a wider, broader Source.
It shall awake to me, and I to thee, and we to It for the asking,
With lateral shared depth: nothing
For cleansing, guiltless in dreams, walk-dreaming
For fun. In six States only shall we know:
Grace, love, compassion,
Confusion, chaos, and violence.
From them will come the Turning Points,
And all that we'd want of love.

Alex Kiilehua is a police officer with an Orange County police agency. In his spare time, Alex enjoys combining martial arts and philosophical writings in an attempt at emulating the popular warrior-poets of Japan: Morihei Uyeshiba and Miyamoto Mushashi.

Here, Alex explains the background to his poem: "My own particular 'turning point' arrived in subtleties, that in its own way, is still arriving. Since, for me, awakenings still come and go and replace each other with ever new awakenings, I decided to use poetry to knit together certain aspects of my current understanding of my spiritual situation.

I laced the poem with favorite earthy references from the Bible and the Tarot (wheels, horses, chariots, Eden, flesh and roosters) in order to link my initial understandings to where I, at recent consciousness, last stood: the earth. From here I continue my spiritual journey while in full realization that I am still grounded herein, though symbolically attempting transition (not the physical death kind).

I chose, for this life, Taoism as my vehicle-in-transition: a philosophy I feel very comfortable with. Although all points of view engage my interest or feather my tolerance, I find that of Taoism the most forgiving short range, and the least forgiving for all time. And since our growth is for all time, the "impersonal pattern of Enochian infinity," Eden is always next door to hell, where our appreciation of the finer things of life should run parallel with our appreciation of the worst. In that context, I believe all things are tolerable, forgivable, and nurturing, hence good for life.

While often enough I curse certain twists in my life's spiral, I can always isolate certain parts, connect them to parts seemingly remote backwards or forwards, and find that their points of manifestation made perfect sense; a college experience to a divorce, a death in the family, to the raising of my children, to sharing traumatic experiences on the job; the "six States." So my turning point will always be "becoming," such as it is, and all I'd want of love in my limited understanding of it."