Live recording on April 23rd, 2016 by the Butler University Chorale. Dr. Eric Stark, Conductor with Travis Waymon, violin. © 2016 Harriet Steinke Text from "Shadowboxing" by John Leo Selected lines: My greatest fear, the feeling that haunts my gut-twisted nightmares, the panicked, whispered song my quickened blood mutters through a muddy, bleary-eyed bluster, is the fear of being small. At night, while I wait for sleep to claim me for what few restless hours I can muster, I build a universe in my head. A never-ending sea of utmost black. Then, with a brush of oneiric bristles bound up loosely in pale-brown twine, I breathe life into stars – stars that frame each other against the harsh void like freckles on God’s cheek. Between each star lives a distance of a billion billion miles. I fall a thousand miles in an instant. They say we all endure this, that we all fall together. In these moments…the static that shuts us away from each other, proves our isolation. It confronts us with our smallness. I am a mote of dust amid seven billion other motes of dust, and between our hopes and our fears is enough pressure to swing the planet out of alignment. While I float toward sleep, while I hope it comes soft and smooth, I paint planets with icy rings and constellations that spell the secret name of the universe. Full story available at http://bareknucklepoet.com/shadowboxing-by-john-leo/