Poetry
Waiting to Return (Original Version)
-August 15, 2005
Everything is clear
fooling with guitars, laughing between the stars and the fire,
lungs free from any deleterious cancer.
I reach to grab the sun,
like a raptor/rapture reaching for the wilderness,
being released after it has been held captive for so long,
wings spreading out as the hands lose grip.
Instead, I hold stones in hand and sever into them,
making each into remembrance.
It was an escape from reality.
Holiday from single file,
rushing through time,
running but nothing seems to lead to a finish line
until the day ends and begins
with the alarm of the next morning.
I’ll wake up,
fake through these hours.
Patience.
I’ll find that switch,
which enlightens these halls that I walk straight on.
I hope the light will take my breath away and I’ll shut my eyes.
I’ll soon awake in the place that I long to return.
Carve out from stones
my loved ones’ hearts
and skip them on top of the surface of this lake,
and for at least this moment
view the sun as it’s lifted
over those mountaintops.
And maybe I’ll see that bird
with wings spread from one side to the other.
It’s reaching for the skyline as it glows in morning light.
I’ll keep that image in frame within me
and I promise to forget the last few days.