No one builds a life, we survive
for a time in that sea by
swimming through currents where
random pieces of flotsam and jetsam
keep us afloat for a time then sink,
or move on,
leaving us to swim again, looking for land
that does not exist in the form we seek.

For moments settle on islands until they
no longer sustain us or
the sea rises up and washes us out into the currents
swimming to survive,
but in the end we cannot.

The best we have of the sea are memories
of what we hoped for and the dreams
we dream when we sink below the waves to sleep.

Dusk, on a quiet evening
Toward the end of my summer.
Shadows kneel at the foot of the setting sun
In a place where I can see them gather just before
They join to form the night that comes on to steal the world.

The road behind me leads from purgatory, ahead it leads to home,
But home is different now.
The car I drive is empty of those who once rode with me.

I wonder how much different
Where I go will be from where I have been
At least I will not have the locks
They put on my doors and
Hope is not a word and whispered
By souls who have abandoned it.

We work together in the day,
But it isn't Us that rumbles through cases
And put out fires and deal with unreasonable people,
It is our lawyer avatars doing what must be done.

I see you though in moments…

It is not Us who do what we can to blend families
Who do not recognize the concept of family as
Applied to them in the context of you and I,
It is our ever hopeful avatars straining at them and each other.

I see you though in moments…

In the night when we are alone, or when we play and laugh,
And always when we touch,
I see you then and clearly and I know this is Us
That survived the rest of it to find each other
And travel together in love.

It is the dark place at the end of the road we travel
And that darkness scares us, but it also beckons.
Seductively it calls with lies of an end to pain,
"Show them what they have done." the darkness whispers then demands.  
"Show them."

We all have heard, some have believed.
People with everything who could not see their worth.
People with options who could not find hope.
People who could only feel pain in the arms of love.

They dive recklessly into the cold dark water and are lost
To us, but not to all
For there is light beyond the darkness that beckons too
And the journey home is longer but no less sure
For all of them.  For all of us.
Peace, Robin, fly true.

I wonder why I am here so I pick over all the little
Things, and some of the big ones, that
Fell into my life.  
I hold them up like a jeweler and examine them
For flaws, or causation…but I don't really see
Them clearly through the loupe of my
Memory where I am always in the right and the aggrieved
And the righteous one who was let down..

And I wonder why that is.

But I know now I wasn't always the hero and I think
I can live with that, though I still don't like it.
I turn my face skyward and pray for forgiveness, realizing that
I also have to forgive, and I don't like that much either.

And I still wonder why I am here and if it made a difference
To anyone…

And then I think of you reading this jumbled mess from
An old(er) man who knows the best stops are in the rear view mirror…
I wonder what I should tell you that would make your minute here
Worthwhile and it comes to me.

Don't wonder, live.

I say I know you, but perhaps I only know
What you want me to see
Or what I hope you are as you bend here
And twist there to conform what you can
To what you think I want.

And I bend the tunnels of my reason to fit your contortions
So I may fit them to the conclusion that I know you.

You do this for me, too.

So we live, an accommodation each to the other;
A compromise born from knowledge we learned
From those we knew who could not learn,
Who could never know either of us.

And in the moments we are close I must touch you
In ways I could never do before or will again
Because the force that gives us strength to blend
Is that over used word that means
We have built of ourselves a home that we will never leave.

I was lost searching for things
I should have had…
Or so I believed
And the search took me past thresholds
I never would have crossed but the quest
became something alive, calling to me
at first then demanding when I gave it the power to do so
as the combination of desire and frustration
drove me past the limits of my mores…
And I was lost
And I was punished
And in the depths of that was
despair known only to the powerless who had once had power
then lost it to misuse.
In that pit reason returned and I knew the fault
was mine, so I prayed sincerely like a child.
Slowly time passed and I became who I was again.
But I was lost away from my world, your world, the world.

And then he found me, the one of ninety nine, and through the
instrument of those I had scorned he brought me out
to live among the world again.

I shall never go back, for in that pit I found the tools to know
What counted.

And I had it all along.