The Trackless Path

I found an arrowhead,

And I tied it around my neck

As a symbol of power and strength,

A memory of the endless wars 

And a message to myself and others

That I still remember the ancient art.

Not really. 

It was a trinket tied with leather 

That I found in a gift shop.

And I thought that it looked cool.

I wore it to school the next day

And my friends thought that it was cool,

So I kept on wearing it through my youth.

I wore it on graduation day, 

And I wore it when I went away a soldiering.

And that did not go so well for me.

But we won the war and I came home 

With the arrowhead still hanging around my neck.

And when I did, I found another war waiting,

The war to make a life and living

As a broken combat vet.

And that didn’t go so well for me.

I married once. I married twice. I married once again.

And all the while, I wore the arrowhead.

The leather wore out several times

And I replaced it.

But I never threw it away. I don’t know why.

I lived alone in my late forties and thereafter.

I slept in abandoned cars.

I slept in tents in the woods.

People would have said that I was homeless

But I was not. Just unable, unwilling, 

I’m not sure which,

To try at a losing game.

And I drank a lot. That started with the war

And continued throughout the losing battle of my life.

And I was never able to connect with people very well,

Wives and children, coworkers.

Even my siblings, we were close when I was young,

But things were different after the war.

And by the time I was fifty, they didn’t recognize me.

To be honest I didn’t recognize myself.

But I’m not so sure I cared.

I lived a long time that way before I got help.

And I have never really gotten better.

But with the help of a higher power, I sobered up.

And when I did, I let myself remember,

Not everything, that’d be too much,

But the good things,

Particularly the people that I loved.

And even now, they stand out in my memory

With amber light around.

And I think that I am at peace with what I’ve lost

And hopeful for the thing that I have found.

And today, the winter light is bright out on the desert.

I untie the arrowhead from my neck

And hike as far as I can manage.

I dig a hole and drop the old arrowhead in,

Cover it up and tamp it down.

And then I make my way back home.

And I am not sure why I did that.

It was a trinket, bought in a gift shop.

And I’m not sure why I wore it for so long.

But now that it’s gone, I feel strangely lighter,

And the future is bright before me.

And that is a strange thing 

For an old man like me to feel.

I’ve found the sacred spectacles

That open the portal to things unseen.

And every morning, I put them on my nose

And stare out a world reborn.

And if you want, 

I’ll conjure you a pair

From my sacred imagination.

And there. Now they’re yours.

Just believe that it is so.

Believe that things are not what they appear

And you’re halfway there. It’s your choice.

You can keep seeing the world 

Through darkened eyes

Or start to believe

That there is something more.

And if you can imagine a brighter world,

If you can refuse to see it

As anything less,

Then you have found the sacred spectacles.

Moon rocks, I suppose, are like any other rocks.

Yet they come from so far away.

And that makes them something special,

But only to those who care.

And I don’t care for rocks so much

As for the things that can’t be hauled away.

Like the feeling that you get looking at rocks

With friends who are there to stay.

And yet, at end of day, 

I wouldn’t mind a trip to the moon

If I could make it there and back in a few days.

But I don’t think I would fill my pockets with rocks

Unless the friend I brought

Thought that they were beautiful.

Behind the steering wheel of life,

So many places I could go.

Luckily a still small voice

Whispers 

What I really want.

Otherwise, I might choose differently.

Toilet paper, how fine an unneeded necessity!

Woven through the culture

Like silk.

And what would we do without it?

Do without it I suppose.

But it’s nice while it lasts! :-)

God, please help me to say NO

When the bigger YES is calling.

I eat a lot of bananas,

But I am not a monkey,

Just a guy with a weak heart.

A weak heart means less blood to everything

Including the parts that digest the food.

And so to keep things moving

I have had to adjust.

I have had to choose a gentler fare.

And I wonder if that’s how life is for all of us.

There is no “one size fits all” prescription for life.

We do our best to keep the machine running for as long as we can.

And perhaps that is a good reason to be kind to those

Who do not eat bananas.

I like to see people more than things.

And it’s so often things that are portrayed

When you glance at the cover of a magazine.

And the famous sell themselves off for parts

When what interests me is the whole.

All the same, now and then,

I search for it in between 

And now and again, I find it, 

But most of the time it’s fallen through

By giving the world the thing it thinks it wants.

Perhaps it is a mistake to look for a soul where there is not.

Surely. Surely. And there are plenty of wholes hiding

In my daily walk. But even there, sometimes

They’re hard to see, for so many

Advertise their useless parts, 

Covering up the whole

I long to see.

And would to God 

That I saw more people and less things.

I stand upon the beach of time

As the tide of stars and space

Roll in and lap up on my feet.

They soothe the memories of my fate

And remind me of sacred promises 

Whispered in the night sky of my dreams 

And there I see, out on the horizon

The sacred unseen streets 

Of cities built without hands 

And the angels that walk there

Call to me to step out upon the mystery

Of the great ocean of space, and to believe

That the impossible is possible.

“Walk upon the water,” they say.

“Come home, Adam, to the memory

Of the thing that you once were.”

And I step out upon the stars and space.

I leave the beach of time behind me,

And enter into the wilderness 

That lies between worlds.

And I walk, walk, walk, by faith.

Until the beach of time disappears

And I am alone with the sacred memory

Of the call of angels.

My life did not turn out like a Hallmark Movie.

But in my heart, in my mind, it’s something like that.