I do not have the answers for the questions that you ask
I do not have directions for your quest, your sacred task
I will commit to nothing that will give your soul respite
I cannot help but drift off as you tell me of your plight
I have a path somewhere that waits for me to forge it new
I have a walking stick that needs a splinter and some dew
Don't look for me to steady my feet here and sit with you
Don't follow me, for I may not lead, nor likely follow you....
I don't know the things that I've been feeling.
I want to understand what I have done.
I try to comprehend the words that roll across my mind
but there's no clarity, no place to run.
I think I did the right things when I knew you.
I felt our souls connect when we were there
I knew the man you were and I was with you
I don't think that I reached to where you were.
I knew the pain you bore, the things that haunt you
I reached beside you, grasping for an end
We shed our blood and sweat and loved the moment
We spoke of virtue and we spoke of sin.
I can't escape the vapors of your memory
I look around, it lingers everywhere
So many dreams and plans became entangled
And now I pull them back from bitter ends.
I've tried to keep composure, keep my presence
I want to be the strong one in the crowd,
But when I think the tears have finally ended,
They seem to always come and find me out.
The small, still fear that creeps against the still of the night
It reaches the tendrils of its melancholy, its paralysis into the soul
It asked the questions that dredge up emotion and terror that harken back
Into the dead past where mild devils, bereft of potency but full of vigor
Speak words intent on consumption and decay, regardless of the truth of it all
But those demons, they know. They know the words to say, to inflict entropy and fear
They know how to debilitate, to render the ambitions void
To pull the soul into the abyss of failure and resentment
It is the burden of the strong to bear this
It is the furrow that is to be plowed with the marrow and the bone
Those timid souls who look on from the outside scoff and revel in their mediocrity
They sneer as if the path is simple, as if it has no weight
They posture their simple jealousy
Never seeing the creeping doubt
The seething fear and blood
They do not know the terrible glory of plunging into the darkness
Of grasping the hell and torment of impending failure and doom
And wrestling from it a semblance of peace, purchased with blood and tears and sleeplessness
And thus, the gladiator finds himself alone, though the crowd revels and fawns
And slaps his back in cheap camaraderie
But he remains alone.
As if the air has weight beyond its allotted place
Pushing down, crushing, seeping in like bile compressed into the soul's space
And I remember each tear, remember each silent torment
I remember the invisible crush of the words unsaid yet left to foment
I felt your eyes, your accusing eyes
Placing that letter, scarlet, around my neck
Judging and quietly moving in the dark to punish
And draw out malicious vengeance
For the crime of sight.
Sight that lays bare the ugly taking
Lays bare the greed and sickly sweet wakings
I saw you and you hated me for it.
I threw myself to karma, to truth. I walked on
Though the thorns and daggered blades of your morass pulled at me I trudged on
To find myself, eventually, stepping out in that far place
The same man, but changed. Missing parts, others bulging and strange
But always the strength is defined by the absence, yes?
The cup cannot take in more without spilling, yes?
And, in that bit spilt, though it is well spent,
Some piece is too melded in to the offall to be kept
And I must look with longing and see that bit of me bereft.
Thus I sit, long after your hooks have torn free
Long after your darts and arrows no longer reach me
Though you, no doubt, still feebly cast them about
Unaware of their pitiful reach, their impotency.
Yet....sitting here and remembering,
I feel them just the same,
Though the part of me they tore has long since succumbed to entropy.
A soft, chill embrace, the midnight wind
Touching, whispering a comprehensible sensation that leaves the skin flushed and tingling.
And the yip of coyotes calling to one another in a frantic cacophony,
The distant splash of waterfowl, the bovine lowing, bringing a life into the cold night.
Stars beyond counting wink down as if to co-conspire on the cold dirt road.
It culminates, it amalgamates itself into this,
A moment.
Fleeting, quickly passing into the fading ether of the past,
Yet imprinted now.
Edges fuzzy in recall, the details vaguely lost, yet the moment remains.
Long after the path is spent and days have changed, it will remain.
Indelible on the canvas of the soul,
As much a feeling as an image, perhaps more so.
And this moment, this hazy snapshot in time,
It is to be cherished, to be coveted.
Long it will offer respite.
When the whirlwind of the people and places that tear at us all leave the soul tattered and trembling,
Deep into the quiet vaults of the soul one looks and draws it out.
Tattered from wear, from the frequent caress of gentle memory
It, the moment, will bring warmth against the cold.
Will bring peace against the raging chaos.
And in time, if we are wise,
We will see.
Life is not beautiful because it is punctuated by these moments.
Life is beautiful because it is lived in these moments.
Guard the moments. Seek them out. Live them in memory over and again.
For when the curtain closes, those moments will be all we really ever had.
