from Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch

"It is impossible to live or to die without God, but it is not impossible to think that you are.
If you think that you are living or dying without God, you will experience that you are.
You may have this experience as long as you wish. You may end this experience whenever you choose."

echo

bordered by the wonderment of winter
a tiny sapling sleeps
comfortably indifferent to the relentless cold
or the parallel just underneath

slumbering, it shudders
as a lucid light floods the dream
the light, it shifts and taunts
and beckons it to see

the magic stardust dancing above
in a world of undulating green
but the dream is trapped in a tortoise shell
while the search continues for a place devoid of suffering

if echoes could command the dark night
it would trickle down like warm rain
and melt away this paralysis
and let thine eyes open once again

but a wicked wind walks by
and kicks loose the bitter frost
exposed, he must confront the cold alone
and the destined being it seeks to mock

time is never taller
than the destiny it claims
we are all bound to its ruthlessness
fallen over and feeling powerless in its wake

love who became a stranger
the sunlight that ceased to exist
trapped inside the maddening cycle of seasons
could combat the winter with lights eternal kiss

if only the sinister night could see
the coming of the sun
the light inside would melt
and the dream would finally wake up