We are
riding the Wind
back to the time we first
felt the Calling and knew its urge
could not be tossed aside
as now we must
all rise

There are whispers that follow me

Through the night.

I more feel than hear them,

Almost wanting yet not quite daring enough

To grab hold of their essence

Standing there just beyond arm’s reach.

“Tell me,” said the lady.

“What’s the reason,” asked the I.

“For help can help but most times hurt,

Unless you know the why.”

“Forget it,” said the lady.

“So be it,” said the I.

“For help to help both you and I,

We’ve got to know the why.”

When I passed by the vacant buildings,

I wondered why I hadn’t noticed their emptiness before.

That I was surrounded by ghosts of yesterdays

More often than not

Trying to masquerade

As present.

Then I realized there was no disguise at all

That indeed those spaces held the tales

My eyes refused my heart to hear.

“Hambone, Hambone, where you been?”

As a child, the world was so wide;

There were valleys and mountains,

(My ups and downs,)

And sometimes I wondered at surviving.

“I been down home and back again.”

As a youth, the mountains turned to hills,

And there was nothing I couldn’t do,

Or not wanted to; and I found

Myself lost in a vacuum.

“Hambone, Hambone, where you been?”

When I grew up, the hills turned back to mountains;

But instead of turning back…I climbed.

“I’ve been to me and back again.”