we went walking
where our ghosts have stood
and all these haunted houses
line the streets
of battles fought & won
but we’re not done
no we’re not done
there are cemeteries
but there’s no rest
and there’ll be no rest for us
these colors must wave
for every hunted generation
in every grave
take me driving
through an open land
with sunsets in my favorite hue
and i’ll know it’s good
when we’re getting through
tour this battlefield
and sing with me
we will rise
again & again
to see our children free
we’ll make the sacrifice
like those gone before us
and their hearts will hear our cry
yeah we might fail
and some will die
but we’ll never go away
we will fight
till our flag flies high
—
“there’s fighting there and the company needs men…”
there are a million ways to spin a line; endless threads woven from complexity in the pursuit of balance, what is true & right and a ratio that’s always on my mind.
i helped it for a long time but some things can’t be helped forever. so if you listen, listen carefully. for it’s what is and what was and what still will be. it’s fear & hope. it’s truth and it’s love.
and when i laid there and wondered why, every time, why does it have to be so difficult? well it was just where i was, where i had been and where i was going. the way you can see glimpses of a rainbow in a thunderstorm and drive and drive and still never reach it.
–
sometimes, at the very worst moments, i see myself in her fear. i see the way i lived and in her eyes i see the horror & pain i faced. the internal struggles. fear, guilt and even a kind of love. a lot of sadness. and there’s nothing i can do but hold her in those moments. i can try to make it right but the damage had already been done long ago, long before this world.
my only solace is that she won’t remember most of it. the mind has a funny way of doing that. i haven’t really decided if it’s good or bad. but i guess it’s necessary. life must go on. anyway there’s a special time for that in your late 20s/early 30s.
and it will go on. it’ll make us crazy. but that’s just something you have to accept, embrace even. a little insanity never hurt anybody, if it’s acknowledged & accounted for. and that’s where i come in. i will champion it until my dying breath because my only prayer is that she lives. one hundred percent. and the saving grace is that truth cannot be denied, truth sets you free, love is truth.
she hears it, she sees it. more than that she feels it & knows it. so i take responsibility for what i can affect and leave the rest in more capable hands.
–
flashes of guidance in a split-second will change your life forever. as they come & go, each one leaves an impression, like a pan of bread in an oven heated up slowly. as it gets hotter & hotter the pan constricts & contracts. for a time they’re almost one.
and each of us bakes a different way. each of us are left out of a different mould. i guess the trick is to fill every cranny, to rise full and come out with just the right crisp & gold.
–
i wasn’t sure i’d even write the first one. i hadn’t written any in a long time, a very long time. i wasn’t sure if the effort would be reciprocated. but that didn’t really matter and when i grasped the pen in my hand with a purpose and wrote the first one i knew it was special. i knew it was right. i knew it was love.
-
it’s dark and he’s late on his way to where he’s supposed to be. but he’s passing it anyway so he might as well stop.
his shoulders are slumped. his neck aches. how many hours has it been? how many trips did he have to make? how many miles yet to drive? what time do we have to be up?
there won’t likely be anything there. why would he bother?
he walks slowly, trying to deny the hope padding the steps up the sidewalk and around the corner.
a few more zig-zags. stands there and contemplates the insanity of putting the key in, for this.
sometimes i feel like i’m in a race to show my daughter everything it’s taken me so long to learn. i suppose it’s always that way with parents. we don’t want our children to make the mistakes we’ve made and somehow amidst a myriad of failures, the one success that we really think is still possible is to make a positive impression on them. if nothing else, we hold onto the hope that in some way they will struggle just a tiny bit less if we can shove all our “experience” down their throats. lol
and so i find myself repeating the phrases “you’ll understand when you’re older…” or “someday you’ll appreciate all of this…”
and then i kind of chuckle. cause i hear my own parents’ voices echoing in my head and i know if they could hear me saying these same words to my daughter it would bring them satisfaction on some level.
well the fact is she may not entirely “get it” right now but that’s okay. my goal isn’t to change her or create a life that she must live for. she is her own person, with her own set of developing dreams, fears, idiosyncrasies, beliefs, etc. all i hope is to give her fond memories so that when life knocks her down she’ll have some things to look back on and maybe some of what has helped me cope will help her carry on as well.
children aren’t our possessions and we shouldn’t treat them like clay that we get to make into whatever we want & then fire in a kiln & paint, like some ceramic we think is pretty to look at. we should rejoice in their freedom & the possibilities they bring into the world, guide them when it’s appropriate and mostly just love them with everything we’ve got. we shouldn’t expect them to make up for where we’ve erred or what we didn’t have.
and if they happen to end up loving music, nature hikes, long drives to nowhere and mexican food, well then yay! those are just bonus.
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the longer i keep writing the more i realize how personal it is, for me at least. even when i’ve written on commission they’re still very personal on some level.
when i try to start writing what i think someone else wants to see from me it makes me shut down. it stops up all the creative energy that is usually free flowing when i’m writing what i’m truly meant to write.
and i require a great deal of personal time (and space) in order to cultivate that energy because i refuse to submit my readers (or myself) to clichéd or half-hearted imitations at poetry & prose. my voice is my voice. so if you want to hear someone else’s voice because that’s what does it for you then go listen or read them. that’s not me and i can only be me. what i write is about my journey and the influences others have had on it. when the ink dries, even if it’s totally fiction, it’s still about my journey and i take pride in truly “owning” it.
–
woke up one day hating
the life you lived in lies
tried to change it all at once
wretched & despised
but even accidents have consequences
and some things you can’t get back
so you fight with all your circumstances
chasing what you lack
then shed a tear or two
as the realization takes its hold
there’s no such thing as easy
and all that’s new grows old
cause the balance found is fleeting
for everyone standing here
and center is just an illusion
when your home’s atop a sphere
-
yeah, so i’m finally ready to accept it. and i’m going to put it right out here in front of everyone and when i forget, it’s up to you to remind me…deal? here goes: there are some external factors that we will NEVER, NOT EVER, be able to change. period.
that’s part one.
part two is: we can ALWAYS, NO MATTER WHAT, change our perspective.
and that’s exactly what i did today when we got lost in the middle of an enormous forest on top of a huge mountain. we walked for miles, quite literally and i loved every second. i reconnected up there, as i’ve done many times before. and somewhere along the trail i found how to change my perspective; how to let the uncontrollable external mesh with the screaming voice inside my soul.
so now that i can see it, all that’s left is to do it.
—
