Words

The orange ball of the sun burned into the shadowy mountain mist.
The fog surrounding dark pinnacles shifted uneasily.
I have seen fires on distant waves wax and wane thus.
It is the glow of charcoal embers seeking breath to catch flame.
My mind wanders and remembers; a tiny infant’s grasp around my finger,
a little puppy snuggled against my cheek on the pillow,
the broken sadness in my father’s hazel eyes.
I see the face of my best friend. I feel his hand upon my shoulder.
But, now, how many years has it been?
He is gone and I am slowly growing older.
At noon, the day is clear and bright but I am full of dreams.
Far away beaches with swaying palms and snow white sands beckon me.
Shimmering trout are jumping in the swift current of cold clear streams.
I am carried far away on the wings of thoughts and memories.
The pain of lost love is like an arrow through my heart.
It is a shifting glacier of ice drifting cold to the pit of my stomach.
I feel the burden of sin on the back of the wretched creature I have been.
It is like the addict’s monkey, a slave to death and destruction.
There was something I wanted to say and pull the cork from the bottom
of my overflowing heart to let it spill out in ink on an empty page.
There was advice to my daughter; there were prayers to God,
There were things unsaid like the love between two men who were brothers.
There was healing and pain, hate and love, joy and suffering, patience and anger.
But it all lay behind a blanket of mist like the diffused disk of this morning.
I wanted to see things clearly as the rainbow fish living in his liquid dream.
But my eyes were blurred. My smile was grim. I wanted to laugh and cry.
I wanted to say things from my heart no mortal ear has ever heard.
I wanted to reach up from the well of my soul and pour the cup of music full.
The salty taste of my own tears tells me I am but a fool.
Only a fool or poet would dare to try when... all I have are words.