The Trackless Path

I have a home that you can’t see,

And I go there often in my mind.

But don’t be deceived,

Though I find it through imagination,

It is more real than anything you’ll find in this world.

It’s foundations reach deep into the bedrock of my soul

And touch the beginning, the first intent, the source of all creation.

It is my eternal home. It is where I choose to live my life.

And there, I house my family, my blood, my kin,

And every lost and broken soul I find along the road.

And in that place, we are not separated by the deceit of what appears.

We are one in the knowledge of our best intent.

We are united in the sacrifice we chose

When we came to this life knowing

That we would fall from love 

And be treacherous to each other 

To spite our best intents to do otherwise.

And there, His grace binds us up in what we were

And what we truly are and will be when lesser homes have disappeared.

At the time that I wrote Rush Rush, I was packaging apples, peaches, tomatoes and greens. I worked for a fruit farmer who dabbled in vegetables. Long days, and little pay, but I enjoyed it. It was a family farm. Good people, honest work. And they let me park my little travel trailer next to the house that they maintained for the migrant workers that they imported from Central America. The migrant workers came to the United States on a special short-term Visa. And when the farmer was done with them, they would be shipped back to Central America. They had it worse, I thought, being so far from home. 

But then I laughed as I looked around myself. I was not so different from them. I too was away from home. Though I lived an hour away, I could not afford the commute, and so I had brought my little travel trailer. And I lay there alone in the dark, because the lights didn’t work, and listened to the music and the chatter that drifted over the rock wall from the house. At least I could I could go home on the weekends, I thought. Yes, we were the same, the migrant workers and I, each of us working hard for our little paycheck, and sending it home to the ones we loved, and each of us endlessly chasing the dream of a little security that never came. The likelihood was that in a year from now, we’d be doing the same thing or something similar, and two years from now, and ten, until we couldn’t do it anymore.

And I wondered how many of the masses of men had lived their lives that way. And as I contemplated these things, I was struck by the futility of it all. And I wrote this poem. And as I wrote it, an image came to mind of a sea captain bellowing at a bunch of peasants as they dragged a boat along a water way by ropes.  Later, when I was looking for an image to attach to the poem, I found a painting by Ilya Repin called Barge Haulers on the Volga. It turns out that that was actually a thing. Russian peasants were hired to pull boats upstream on the Volga River. Who would have known?!

Barge Haulers on the Repin by Ilya Repin (1873)

Rush Rush 

Said the Captain, 

The Son of a Captain, 

Whose Father was Captain before 

We drive for the 

Nethermost edge of the world 

Where we'll meet 

The great captains of yore. 

We are told 

That they wait us 

Where ne'r a hiatus 

Is known on that distant black shore. 

But the devil will greet us 

And slyly entreat us 

With the lie 

Just a little bit more.

I ran a little junk booth for a while. I went around and asked the yard sales to give me what they didn’t sell, and some did. And then I sold it at the swap meet. And I made a few dollars. 

Next to my junk booth was another junk booth. And the man who ran the booth was named Rod. Now and then, Rod would come and buy some of my junk to add to his junk. He was my biggest customer. And I was surprised that he bought my junk since he had so much junk of his own, about a fifth of an acre’s worth, strewn out on plywood sheets atop little metal sawhorses, and more stuff underneath, and laid out on tarps. It was quite a collection. 

People came and wandered up and down the isles of junk. Now and then, they’d want something. When we offered them a price, more often than not, they’d try to get it for less. After all, we were dealing in junk, people’s left over excesses. And the expectation was that we would let it go for nearly nothing. And in this we rarely disappointed our clientele.

One day, Rod asked me to help him move some things. “I’ll pay you twenty dollars,” he said. And I couldn’t pass that up. So we went to a long quonset hut that was full of junk. I was amazed! “The lady that owns this place says I have to get out,” he said. The building was full of the types of things that Rod sold at the swap meet. And interspersed were little piles of rotting food, old papers, nudie magazines. The next stop was a motorhome, packed full of junk, and then a large storage unit packed from side to side and high up to the ceiling, and then an out building in someone’s yard. “Do you pay rent on all of these?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he said, “That’s why I’m so broke.” 

“How many do you have?” I asked.

“Ten or twelve,” he said.

Wow! I didn’t say it outloud. But wow!

As we were lifting a weight set into my van, Rod complained. “This is hard work,” he said. “I’m getting too old for this.” 

“Have you thought of doing something else?” I asked.

“Yeah. But I don’t know what else I’d do.” he said.

As we went from place to place, I wondered what the value of his stash might be. I started adding it up in my mind - just the few things that passed through my hands. And I quickly realized that even at garage sale prices, Rod might be a millionaire. 

But the flow was all damned up. Too much in, and not enough out. And he seemed to lack the ability to put any real value on things. “It’s all junk,” he said. And it seemed like that was how he felt about himself. His face was dirty, his hair unwashed, his fingernails long. And he wore the same clothes every day. But there was no time to take care of what he had.

All the same, he was a busy man, stashing, hoarding, and moving it around from place to place. He sold an item here and there. And nearly every day, he bought more stuff. People stopped by his booth before going to the dump. They knew that Rod could not resist. He’d buy another pickupload full of junk with his last few dollars and go to bed worried about how he’d make ends meet. 

And I had that strange but familiar feeling that I had been sent exactly to that place to witness Rod. “Why am I hear, God?” I kept asking. 

After a week or so, I retired from helping Rod. I couldn’t take it anymore. I made my way to our desert camp and sat behind the steering wheel of the van thinking about Rod and about people and things. I wondered what it would take for him to turn the tide of his affairs. I realized that even if he stopped buying junk and devoted the rest of his life to the dispensing of his surplus property, he would probably die before he finished. And the canker of the dark and rotting places might just kill him in the process. The only solution I could see was to walk away from it all.

And then I thought about myself. “What am I still holding on to?” I wondered. And I wrote this poem in the spirit of that question and desire.

Walk away boy,

Walk away.

You'll never have enough

And you'll never find the thing 

That you were missing.

Walk away.

You know that she's a fake

And that she lures you 

With a dream.

Walk away.

And let them come 

And carry it all 

Into the hollow 

Of their empty eyes,

Where the darkness 

Needn't bind you any longer.

Fly away.

Fly away, boy,

Into the brightness 

Of the morning sunshine.

And let the coolness of it's rivers

Wash away the mystery

Of all you hoped to find there.

It is easier than you think.

And it is a breath away.

It is a moment.

It is now.

A week or two after writing this poem, a friend helped me close my junk booth. We loaded it all up in the van and in his truck and dropped it off at the homeless relief center. After they served the evening meal, they let the homeless take what they wanted. 

The volunteer said that most of it was gone within 15 minutes. One lady took the lion’s share, he said. But he shook his head and chuckled. “I don’t know what she will do with all that crap.” he said. “She lives in a tent!”

The body is the means through which God imparts His perfect love,

For it is the body that suffers. And it is through suffering well 

That Godlike love develops.

Without the body, 

We could not learn to love those 

Who hate us, who hurt us, who despitefully use us, and persecute us.

None of these painful things can happen to us

While we are with Him in spirit,

Only in the body.

So cherish the body. It is the gift through which 

God desires to impart his perfect love.

I live most of my life in a chair.

I eat there. I work there.

But I don’t sleep there.

The chair, it suits me,

Except when I want some exercise

Or to take a drive, or a dip in the lagoon

With friends and loved ones near.

Some dig ditches or some hang from poles in the air,

But not for me. For me, you see, 

My life is best spent 

In a chair.

Things are not what they appear, thank God.

And the apparent enemy is my friend

When seen through the lens

Of what is wrought through tribulation.

It’s a wonder to me that people do anything.

But you have to do something, I suppose.

And what I mean is business, economy.

There is so much work involved.

And anytime there is a need, someone fills it.

Isn’t that a miracle?!

And I suppose that the reason I am surprised 

Is because my writing doesn’t feel like all the things

I do to make a living. And I wonder if all artists feel that way.

Probably not. There are those who art 

In the same way I wash dishes or windows,

Or package seeds, or run a booth, 

Or carry the deceased 

From here to there.

I’ve done lots of things for work.

But these words here on this page are not like that.

All the same, my deepest whisper tells me

That one day these two worlds will collide

And merge into the same.

And that feels right.

To fly upon the back of steel

To ride into the risk of death, always,

Always, upon the edge of stormy days,

And to forget my mother’s worried glances.

One passenger, no luggage,

A life in the balance,

But free from the safety that would close me in

And keep me from the baking son

And the chapping wind.

I am alone in the world.

The past crumbles into dust behind me,

And no future promises anything

But the endless road,

And roaches 

In cheap hotels

That line the highway of my dreams.

There is an old machine,

A massive conveyer belt I think, or at least it was.

It’s rusted and dingy, and it’s parked across the street.

It looks like a dinosaur, with it’s the long neck rising,

It’s massive head protruding from the top.

And nobody notices it there.

They drive past on their way to newer, shinier things.

But I like the dinosaur, heavy, immovable, and left behind.

I am a dinosaur, heavy, immovable, and left behind.

And yet alive. That’s what makes us different.

We, the broken, dingy, people left behind, will rise.

We’ll rise when shiny things are left behind.

Let’s say you have a child,

And the child goes away to college,

And then begins to sow his wild oats.

He skips all his classes and refuses to get a job.

He sleeps around with everyone and everything.

He starts using drugs and stealing.

And when confronted with his wrongs,

He becomes angry and belligerent.

And then, let’s suppose 

That he gets away with it.

Let’s assume that he prospers in his wickedness

And that he continues for a decade, maybe two.

What would be your hope for that child?

Wouldn’t you long for his rock bottom?

Wouldn’t you hope that one day

He would reap what he has sown?

And wouldn’t his demise 

Be the possible beginning of a new life?

Now, of course, he could curse God and die.

But he doesn’t really have much to lose, does he?

Well, now consider the world.

We are about to reap what we have sown.

And though it may burn our souls like fire

And shake us to our bones,

Isn’t it worth it

To be offered a new life more worth living.