There is darkness
and there is light,
and I am here in the shadows
of this place,
in this time,
I find myself.
I am whole
and I am broken.
I am saved
and I am lost.
Together and apart
from all things I have been.
I am somewhere in between
what I was
and what I will be,
were I was
and where I’m going
and the unknown
so excites me.
So close to defeat,
I keep on fighting,
not sure that I know any other way.
Struck by the vulnerable beauty
that exists,
however temporarily.
It always goes,
it’s always there,
it’s always coming on;
the war,
the storm,
there’s something in the air.
I can’t seem to escape,
not sure I want to, anyway.
I’ve given all I’ve got
and always seem to find a place
where possibility exists,
where fantasy becomes so real.
Lost in what I feel,
what I know.
I’m driving home
on an anonymous road,
my hand is light upon the wheel.
I can feel
there’s something more
over the next rise.
My eyes running with tears
that dry,
when the wind blows by
and scares up all my fears.
I am nothing,
if I’m not hunting,
if I’m not running,
I am coming home.
Finding where I belong
in a place I’ve never known.
The thunder shakes this place,
it makes the changes known.
Blows away the fade
and what is left
is what will grow.
No one wants to face the days alone.
I have people with me who have shown,
they are worth the journey I am on.
Before me lies the way to where I’m from,
I must continue on.
There is a tree,
growing from the ruins
of my birthplace.
Its bark is rough,
its limbs
twisted and bent,
yet it blossoms beautifully
when fed
from steel grey skies’
hard, striking rain
and gale.
Resplendent in its field of toppled stones,
roots entwined within foundations
laid by blistered hands
that created the only thing in this world
capable of withstanding the past
and containing the future;
rich, cultured dirt.
No matter where I am going,
or where I am from,
I was quickened by that dirt.
With the worms and shit,
I became life
and death
and forever.
I never knew loss,
only rebirth.
I never grew apart,
I only spread my arms
around the sky
and laid roots
with each eager footstep.
I have known no joy,
but that of branches cut
and taken,
to be grown in foreign soils,
some much harder than my own.
I am alight in darkness,
deep, ebony night.
Aspirating death
and kissing long the life giver.
I am deeply rooted,
but my seeds have travelled far
on winds only known
to sentinels.
I am the wandering one.
I am the unyielding heart.
I am the wind,
the road,
the sea
and the rocks beneath me.
I am breath,
released with that first step
across the threshold
of protected places
found only by hearts seeking.
Driving through the night
for love only.
HG – 2016