Coming inside
from a cold, hard day
out there again.
We live it
through a window,
a screen
or a story told.
You step back in
and we don’t even know
how long you’ve been gone.
You’re dirty and tired,
singing your broken boy song.
They all gather around
to hear what you have to say.
It seems that the stories
help to heal you a little bit, anyway.
We see the scars,
and the tears,
but I watch in their eyes
as they hear
you speak about facing your fears.
This is how it’s been done
since the beginning.
One starts to play,
and then the other
broken boys come along.
They all take turns
singing their broken boy songs.
The young men hear them
and long to be strong,
while the old men
help each one carry on.
Scar tissue,
nightmares,
and good friends gone.
The fire burns bright
as it has since the first dawn.
Young men learn
at the feet
of those who’ve learned defeat,
victory,
and the truth about right and wrong.
We try to fix them,
but the wounds
go too deep to stitch them.
Down to the bone.
Right through their souls.
Only way to diminish them
seems to be,
that if they come back at all,
we listen to them sing
their broken boy songs.
Maybe it’s the only way
any of the pain
passes at all.
DJR – 2023
