The road to forever
can be unsure.
The road to heaven
can be unkind.
We were playing in
a tennis tourney
our friendship yet unformed,
when in the near distance
on a dark horizon
five newly sprung twisters
filled then blotted out the sky.
We began to run our separate paces,
our destiny known,
our destiny unsure.
The miles we covered
seemed endless and yet
at the same time, so sublime.
We matched our paces step
for step
as if we were twins
marching our last time.
Til we happened upon a
humble house
Laura Ingals Wilder-like,
filled with screeching
Mothers, children
old men, old women
husbands and wives.
People who suddenly
became fellow humans
forever cemented with our
fates, glaring into the
face of death with its leering eyes.
And when the wind came,
It swept us away
the house like a doll's
captured in a mighty swirling wave.
By some minute miracle it held.
Within its fragile walls,
we were all momentarily saved...
and I could not tear my eyes
away from your face.
You gave me strength
though I barely knew you.
Again the wind rose up
and we raced to a pop up tent
a Grandmother, her dog and a neighbor's child
at first plead with us and then
invited us in
but immediately were swept away
before our unbelieving eyes...
we began to surmise,
this was a storm that would never
be over.
So afterwards, with a 1000 other students
we grabbed scattered sacks of grass and grain.
They were meager buffers against the re-gathering storm.
They were our sponges devouring bruising bluster
and ravaging rain.
And, as we sat at a very long picnic table
with our hands all grasped
like our last supper
the evil black clouds once again
descended.
I looked again into the eyes
of more new friends
and I knew we could make it,
live to descend another bridge, another day,
live to run another slow motion mile.
The storm weakened and we
formed one long unsteady meandering line.
We followed the superhighway
a mighty span, an embroidered skein,
across a newly silent sky.
Below us the span was filled with
holes,
treacherous and sometimes disguised.
The bridge lingered on forever,
and there were no hand holds,
we looked only forwards,
never outwards or down.
We followed a disgraced sister,
a former nun
because she could see Jesus,
she would lead us back to the college union,
our saving rising sun.
She was a sort of salvation,
a half-blind guiding star.
But we did go far
and once we got there,
we began to breathe
as it was our need
to believe ourselves redeemed
and throw up our hands
in praise to the sparing God of the
whirling skies.
Still, I sensed there were some
who felt in the face of a storm,
that any God was a lie.
Yet I knew we'd shared
moments that might have passed us by.
We may have
been heaved into
a ditch.
We may have not
slipped fate's final hitch,
We may not
have given tomorrow
our best or our worst try.
The road to forever
is unsure.
The road to heaven
can be unkind.
But I think,
Yes, I think I learned,
moreover,
that when you follow love
even when its from the fallen or the complete stranger
you will never ever be
left all alone
or forever behind.
5:14am in the morning Wednesday Copyright September 28 2011
written directly and simply onto the page as remembered from a nightmare that
had an unexpected ending.
All Rights Reserved By Author
Adjustments and editing made later, as I am tired from the experience.
