If guilt and mistakes are at stake
And you're stuck in a rut that's deep with door closed shut
I urge you to break open windows and take, take what you know
And put it in a skill
Use your strength and your will
For only you, this soil, can till
I want you to walk boardwalks and talk to crowds
Convey your heart and speak out loud
To draw and write the things you feel
For though it is not original, or perhaps good enough to show others
You've given yourself something that is real
If the past clings to your ankles and you can't shake it's shackles
Take the rings of iron bound to your feet and break the bindings
The past will not last in your mind anyhow and how you know that you're free
Is when you are able to stand and accept life's steep, and harsh fee
And move and go and know and live and be happy, regardless of it's toll
And if you can do this than you have done more than all the rest who feel best
And you have beaten the ultimate test
For happiness comes sparingly in short bursts
And if you're simply warily comparing the outcomes of actions
Then you are not alive, and the beauty will pass you by
and the chance for happiness will digress and leave you alone
If you can hear then you listen to songs, and words
the footsteps the heartbeats, the wind in the tree's and it's birds
If you can see then you look at the art on the walls that apart from yourself
Can still bring to you some beauty in heart
You look at the bridges in Vermont that in the orange flush fall
Paint the world their colors as they fall from tree's that stand tall
And you like that tree should stand in the wind and not bend to the fate
For when you move with the wind you'll find that happiness does not wait
So as you stare from the window in the stone house you have built
As the flowers you brought from outside are gone, or start to wilt
And you see the sunshine line the paths that you know you should walk
And the people who stand in bands with whom you know you should talk
I hope that the cold of the stone which for years you have known
Serves reminder to find the courage to walk through the door which you abhor
And find the life and light and peace that I know the world for you, has in store.
For a dear friend of mine.