A path arose before me.
I was tentative,
but what lay behind
was more terrible
than what lay ahead.
I was mesmerized,
bewildered by the starlight
and the promise
of a newborn day.
I tarried in the shallows,
never going too deep,
but quaintly ageless.
I hungered for release;
the type that only birds know
on their final flight.
I climbed up out of the trenches,
debated fortitude
with noble friends
under enemy fire,
then opened up again
and watched the Earth curve
and the horizon burn
as we broke the hold of Gaia.
I settled on the beaches,
looking for a post card,
but instead,
I found there was a fire beneath.
Paradise is laid
on foundations of brimstone
and that’s a known fact.
Years later,
in my wiser years;
I took a look outside
and again,
I felt the beckoning
of my wandering soul.
The call,
not to participate in history,
but to realize the future.
Another step,
but what could I learn?
another step,
what more can I become?
another day,
another new horizon.
Another chance
to leave the old behind
and remain new.
Let History have the dead,
the future calls only the living.
HG – 2018