I was driving the back roads from my house
out in the country where things are real;
they live, they die, they make noise and they move
in the way Nature intended.

The road bumped under my wheels because it wasn't paved,
dust flew up behind the car, but fresh air came in my window.
The sun was going down a bit, so the horizon in my rearview mirror
was a beautiful orange blaze which gave me peace.

And for some reason I wondered when it would come.

I've been waiting for as long as I knew it existed
though when I was younger the wait seemed so long
the coming seemed more fantasy than reality,
time changed that perception as did experience and loss.

Now I know it's closer.  Thank God I can't feel it near yet
but I know it's closing in and I wonder when it will arrive;
I also wonder whether it will be swift and merciful
or if it will play with me and make me suffer
and force me to be brave
I'm not brave, you know.  I'm just stubborn
and I like to fight battles I am not supposed to win.

Then I wondered if fighting would be worth it
because all I want, all I need, is to be a part of this out here
a piece of what is real, which is why my peace will be as
scattered dust riding on the wind to find my place
in all of this beautiful, sacred, loving nature.

I wonder when it's coming.
          Some days i don't want to wait.

he was raised by a mother at the end of the line of
women who thought their sons did no wrong;
so he thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing wrong.

the rest of us envied him then,
no chores, more money in his pocket than any of us,
a sense he was never required to play by the rules that bound us,
he had no discipline because it did not apply to him
but you had to like him, he always smiled
and he always had a girl because he was the
one they were warned about and they all wanted
to tame him-they didn't know
you can't tame one who has too many carrots
and has never felt the stick

now we have spent our youth

those who invested it have treasure he'll never value
he spent his like the wind gets spent
and  he has reaped exactly what he spent.
his knees are bowed, his hair a color not found in nature
and his chest has fallen so his belt has to hold it up

but you have to like him, he always smiles
and he always has a girl, though none of them
look the same as when we envied him
        
But he's still smiling.

Never quit they told me early in my life,
Push yourself, do what you're told, you'll be rewarded.

Now I look back over their spectral shoulders
And ask where is the reward?

They look at me blankly over the years and I elaborate,
Where is the reward I have been promised?
I am older now, older than you were when you set me in motion,
Older than you lived to be and here I am tied to a life
That did not live up to the promises you gave.

For all my effort,
I did not climb to the top of the mountain,
I do not live in a mansion,
There is no plaque with my name for people to admire,
There is only me and I am often lonely even when I'm not alone.

Having said this, I recalled my mother's eyes and saw her again
Standing there with the amused grin she wore
Just before she told me why I was wrong.

Around her I saw other things from the years that passed.
I felt again what I had done and what I had lived

I knew again the things that made me smile
And those that made me cry.
I saw my children and their children
And will probably see the next to come.
I felt my pains, my loves, my losses and my triumphs.
My friends reached out to me, even those who were gone for years
Embraced me and gave me warmth.
I met my wife again, my true love, and lived our moments over.
I felt my frustrations and my angers,
But they didn't weigh as much now as they had then,
Neither did the scorn of those who had their triumphs over me
For many of them are gone now, some ingloriously
While I plod on into an age they'll never know
With memories they'll never have.

My mother smiled from her distance.
She had always known me best and now she knew what I had seen.
She placed a hand upon her heart and waved as
She faded gently back to the place I will call my home.

This life was my reward and more than I deserve.

There is this fish who shares my office
I feed him and he has certain rules:
No noisy exchanges with the crab,
(the crab is territorial so this must be hard for the fish)
No staring at me, though I can stare at him,
and above all
No criticism of what I do.

He is my friend because he does these things perfectly

My other friends are mostly human
My best friend is a woman who married me
They are not like the fish, which gives me trouble sometimes
I give them trouble too, I think,
But it usually works out.

When it doesn't, I always have the fish
And if he's too busy, there is the plant in the corner
Who has stood by me for years.

Not like the stories, is it?
Or the movies, or the expectations
we get from all that.

It's about people who travel with baggage
they carry when
they move into your life.  

It's heavy sometimes, and ugly and you have
to help them carry it, which isn't much fun.
Not like what it was supposed to be;
nothing you want to do;
not fair at all…

So what it is, love that is, takes all the stuff
from the stories and expectations
and adds understanding, acceptance, accommodation
because that's what it takes to help you
carry someone's baggage…

and what it takes to help them carry yours.

It is a sad world where the things
happening in the night are the most fascinating,
which means they are broadcast where we can see them better
and hopefully buy the toothpaste sponsoring them.

The startling things are real, but they are not who we are,
not we who embrace our humanity and shudder
at the tales of those who prey and injure
to feel a power we shun

My mother said there is no paycheck for being good;
Maybe, but there is consolation for
in those moments when what we do
is what we ought to have done

Moments when a stranger's child frightened by lighting
instinctively leaps into your arms for comfort,
times when a stricken cancer patient is solicitous about
the sound of your cough in the doctor's office.

You have felt the warmth I cannot describe
and you know, you know
this is the touch of something greater given to
comfort us for all we will endure.

It was spring when the old things get cleared away
and I opened a drawer that was mostly closed now;
in the back was a ring of keys I hadn't touched forever
because the doors they opened were gone.

My first car, a castoff from my father we used in high school
to go to practice, or for hamburgers, or to the movies
in a time when that was the most fun we could have.
I see the boys now, smiling and singing songs you never hear anymore.

The key to my the apartment I had going to school, a little place
I shared with Jimmy Redd just off campus where we
drank, caroused and learned how to cook hamburger helper
between working and going to class.

The key to my first office and the house I bought where
some of my kids lived and I had a future
that was wasted by trusting people whose most important
love was in the mirror every morning

Then there were no keys for years when I could not unlock
the doors I lived behind in places where
the only comfort was a date yet to come as I waited
and the world turned without me, changing everything

Which turned out to be for the best
For the last unused key was to my first home after leaving high school
the place love became real and where the missing part
of me had been waiting through her own trials.

I smiled and held the keys tight then put them back into the drawer
they are not useless as I thought
because the doors they open are those I will
always be able to enter.