Eagle & Snake Poem by Paul Abucean

You're down on the ground. The biting gets bad.
You feel you don't really belong.
Why is it - you wonder - the world is so mad
And everything seems to go wrong?
You come to discern, as you learn from mistakes:
An eagle's perspective is not like a snake's.

Disgusted with being just one of them all
You soar on the wings of your dreams.
The higher you fly, the harder you fall.
The only reminder, it seems
That you have a heart are the times when it breaks:
An eagle's perspective is not like a snake's.

But raising your eyes with despair on your face
You sight, as you shuffle and grope
The sky and the earth in transcendent embrace
Upon a horizon of Hope.
You do, at long last, understand what it takes:
An eagle's perspective is not like a snake's.

And so, at the end of your endless ordeals
You find, on the very last stave
The music that soothes, the poem that heals
The love that can sweeten a grave.
Well, shouldn't you thank for your sorrows and aches?
An eagle's perspective is not like a snake's.

Until, as you lie all alone with your mind
Forefeeling the toll of the knell
With nothing before, you see that behind
You leave either heaven or hell.
And heaven begins where Compassion awakes:
An eagle's perspective is not like a snake's
And you, who are both, know it well!