The Trackless Path

People...families with children...

I watch them as if from far away

And say, oh yeah, I remember that.

It’s hard to write

And I don’t know quite why

At least it’s hard to write that story.

But this is easy,

The little daily poems,

Because I write the way I think.

And one line just flows into another.

But in the world of my story, it gets all bound up.

I am not sure how to make that more like this.

In the coming years

Understanding will blossom

While the world of the self-righteous

Is steeped in war.  

And that war will end all wars.

Though I can’t really call it war.

Mere killing is more accurate.  

And the world will devolve into chaos.

And men will kill each other

In one wave of carnage 

Followed by another.

And at the same time will rise

The banner of a new nation

Which is not of this world.

Its citizens will not take up the sword

But will sue for peace.

They will put away their differences

And love one another.

And eventually,

When the wicked have killed the wicked,

And there is no soul left to convince of any cause,

The world will be at peace.

There is shade not too far away.

So don’t look far away.

Stay close.

Don’t move too much

Or you’ll waste the day searching.

I stand alone somewhere far, far away

From all that I see here.

I do not reside in this place only.

And the gray clouds roll overhead

As the waves lap up upon the sacred beach.

And I feel the cool sand under my naked feet.

And for as far as I can see

There is no one to speak

No one to laugh

Or peep.

I am alone.

What comfort to know

When the world forsakes me

That somewhere in the mystic sea of existence,

I am truly untouched by all that seems so terrible.

When you’re young

The world seems young

Because your eyes are on the young.

And it’s hard to imagine that one day you’ll be old.

And when you’re young

The world appears beautiful

Whether you are beautiful or not

Because your eyes are ever fixed upon the beautiful.

Our culture wants it this way

Because money can be made

By selling the illusion of youth and beauty.

And because of that, even many of the old

Still pretend that the world is youth and beauty.

Their eyes are on the cover of the magazine.

And their lives are mostly wasted chasing youth and beauty.

But that is not the truth you’ll see 

When you look up from the magazine.

Most people are, in fact, a little old and a little ugly, 

Or at best, kind of plain before they put on their makeup.

And I find that kind of beautiful in its own way.

There is a generation coming 

That will forsake this modern culture in its entirety.

And the culture will forsake them as well.

They will be the new dissenters

The peaceful rebels,

Traitors to all that man has aspired to be.

But they will rejoice to do without.

And they will put their whole trust in the Great Unseen.

For they will have no other choice.

And He will be to them

All that the culture promised to be.

But unlike the culture, He will deliver.

They said it was impossible.

But she did it anyway.

She walked away.

And she knew that she was not fit to face the world,

And that if she left she would end up on the street.

And that the street would eat her up.

But she did it anyway.

She walked away.

And the doctors threw up their hands in disbelief.

She’s gone mad, some said.

She was already mad, said others.

But she did it anyway.

She walked away.

And now she spends her days here and there - 

Dirty, unkempt, and mad.

But she feels the breeze

She sweats out in the heat

And dips her hands into the pool

And pulls the water to her face 

So as to feel the coolness on her cheeks.

And laughs.

She laughs and laughs.

And talks to her imaginary friends.

And sometimes she is very scared.

And sometimes very sad.

But, she says, in her most coherent moments.

At least it’s real.

At least I am the thing I am.

I’ve experienced infatuation.

I have fallen in love to the wrong person

And had the heavens disapprove.

So I know that love can blind.

But this is not that.

There is no virtue in moving on

From a thing that’s right.

There is no virtue

In letting faith die.

Better to die yourself

Than to move on

In your heart

From a thing that’s right.

I come to it late in life:

A renouncement to the road.

But I have travelled before.

I have lived on faith

And thrived,

Trived, that is,

In the poverty way one thrives.

But now I prepare to make it my profession.

And I discover that it is just as much work as anything else.

And to do it right,

I must throw myself all in.

And trust that God will provide.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, it is a job.

And I embrace the work.