Life encompassing you as you trek amidst a jungle

You suddenly come upon that which you seek

What some call a myth, you can call reality

You smile upon seeing the portal of paradise

A mystical portal of legend, destined to take you to a promised golden land

You set aside your hiking backpack and slip off your dirty worn tennis shoes, as you look into the portal

You gracefully take two steps into the blueish-gray portal as it embraces you…

You slip into the mesmerizing portal of beauty

A portal of beauty leading to an envisaged paradise

An envisaged paradise that you fathom to be pure

Pure, its soul and core overwhelmingly blissful

Blissful, are your thoughts as you reach the paradise

The paradise, you land upon a grassy green hill

A green hill from which you see a city some distance away

A city, you were born in that city

That city, a place you have always remembered

A place you have always remembered, a land of pain and suffering

A land of pain and suffering, the land you left

The land you left, the monster of your past

The monster of your past, your regrets and guilt

Your regrets and guilt, culminating from your failures

Your failures, your inability to cause change

Your inability to cause change, for the people remain miserable

The people remain miserable, within that city

That city, from which you were close by upon reaching ‘paradise’

Reaching paradise, but what is the paradise?

You look around, trying to figure out what everything means

The paradise, your thoughts engaged in locating it

Locating it, for as you look around, you see nothing

You see nothing, no paradise

No paradise, no happiness

No happiness, the fate you would return to in the city

The city, you can’t stop thinking about it

Thinking about it, you remember the flashbacks of gray

Gray, the buildings as you noticed a flash of blue

Blue, the river in which you swam as a child as you saw a light green in the distance

Green, a beautiful grassy hill

A grassy hill, your childhood’s daydreams

Your childhood’s daydreams, which is where you stand now

Now, you recall those daydreams

Those daydreams, the thoughts of the beauty in nature

This sudden realization piecing together within your mind

The beauty in nature, the ultimate paradise

The ultimate paradise, your portal’s destination

Your portal’s destination, the untouched pristine hill

The hill, an emblem of purity and nature

Nature, a truth of this temporal life.

Your mind races as it illustrates the truth you just rediscovered

You imagine turquoise waterfalls calmly roaring throughout the wind

The wind gliding through the dark oak trees

The dark oak trees, firmly planted in the hazel dirt

The hazel dirt, housing innumerable organisms and life itself

Life itself, the child of this magnificent creation

This magnificent creation, nature

Your thoughts slow

You come to the conclusion about what peace means to you

Nature, the true land of paradise

The true land of paradise, better than the one in your imagination

The one in your imagination, this ultimate source of that which exists today

That which exists today, the hill you stand upon

A hill you stand upon, yet now you can comprehend it

You can comprehend the beauty of nature in its infinitesimal layers

Infinitesimal layers, right beneath your feet

Beneath your feet, the imagined paradise from your childhood

The imagined paradise from your childhood, but you realize it was your true paradise all along

Your true paradise, but you call it something else now

Something else, something that shows your appreciation

Your appreciation, as you recognize it as true beauty

True Beauty…

You call it home.