Kicking out against the sheet,
trying hard to find sleep,
I wake and wonder why
when we fall we don't shy
our eyes against the sky.

The truth, if ever there was one,
is you find the ground when falling's done.
To feel the earth below your feet,
to wander empty city streets,
to keep from flying when complete.

But to reach out toward the sky and soar
imagine wanting that and nothing more.
When we are young we could trade it all to fly.
If asked the moon in return we would comply.
To see it all, our world, from on high.

Whatever happens to this urge?
Why dismiss it? Where is it's funeral dirge?
I think it comes back to us in dreams.
The little cracks in our lives between the seams.
(Maybe it returns in our winter.)
It lives on both ends of age's extremes.
(As our minds begin to splinter.)

I hope old age finds me thinking of flying.
Hoping to soar when I'm dying.
I have to try to find that place,
before I finish my solitary race,
where I can reach above and hope to touch space.

Staked to the ground we find ourselves at
the crossroads.
Though no deal is to be struck,
no bargain arranged
and no promises kept.
This is a place for looking
and, if we are all very lucky,
a place for seeing as well.

Stand here with me, in these chains,
and sing me the song that is
the night.
Breath this starlight and look out
on the expanse of our ever
expanding universe.

Do you see it yet?

Pinned though we are,
wondering though we might,
we have to find the single spark,
we have to see the light.

It is here, in the darkness that we revisit.
That we revise.
That we dig it all up and decide.
Because tomorrow, thankfully not today,
we grow toward the sunlight
more efficiently,
as the people we have to be.

We are staked here, at the crossroads,
but when these pins are drawn,
our chains lifted,
we will soar the skies above the crossroads.
We'll wonder, one has to hope,
as we look down on the trail that
had become our prison,
The path here is crooked,
so many obstructions
too many hazards.
The paths lead nowhere...
How did we ever get around?

Tripped on an errant root
in a tiled hall.
Took a dose of ******* silence
and slipped from it all.

Remember when true was truth
and love was bold?
Can't reconcile these lines with lies
Not still young, not yet old.

Don't know how to search inside and find
the mettle.
(Be a better man?)
Try to grip the flower, but tear out
the petal.
(Turn you to dust, to sand.)

Find her sat against a lower shelf
down on time and health.
Can't figure who to be from self,
hard to know coin from wealth.

How do you not see the things you can do?
How can you see your life,
this thing you've built
by yourself and with your own power,
and not see the triumph within?
Because who cares if you're not
what we all thought we would be?
Fortune and fame are such
trivial things when compared
to having nothing, which
(To let slip a small secret of the universe)
is all we are ever given,
and making from it something.
What you do?
How the **** does that matter?
Why would it ever matter?
You are what you are,
my friend,
you are what you have become.
But, hold your breath this is a big one,
you have managed, somehow in spite
of all the **** this world has to offer,
all that is forced on you,
you became yourself.
How amazing an accomplishment is that?
You, sir/madam are an amazing,
an astounding,
a fantastic
accomplishment!
How do you not see the things you can do?

I have these pieces,
remnants of you,
scattered through my life.
A jacket, red flannel,
which I am afraid to wear.
How do I measure up to it?
A series of cloth belts.
The rise of a man who
had, in a long ago,
in a far away,
mastered this art already.
Tucked in a box, a note in your
wife's handwriting,
like a treasure map,
laying out the path to take
to find the things
that are all I have you.
Because the photos aren't you.
You did not smile that way
in my memories.
The photos are a ******* lie
that tell the story of man
who grew old an abandoned
me on this **** planet
with these monsters shaped like men.
They are not you.

I look at my things,
my random crap...
What will I leave?
What of this crap, that I treasure,
will be me one day?

I can't find your voice.
Everything is disposable
all of a sudden
and I've come to find out
that we are too.
All of us.
We become the trash
that our children are afraid to
throw away.
The measure of our lives
a series of fuzzy memories,
photographs and knick knacks.
Possessions, sir.
That is what we become?

We are so much more.
Aren't we?
Of course we are.
I remember your hand on the
seat of my bike.
I remember the way that you
could laugh with your nose,
smile at us with your eyes.
Blue. They were so blue...
I think back on the lessons.
You taught me to love, sir.
Did I ever thank you for that?
Of course I didn't.
Of course.

You're a little wooden box
on the night stand next to my bed.
An envelope with my name on it,
the last of your handwriting I have.
You're an episode of the Power Rangers,
I know, I can't believe it either.
You're in the way I love, now.
The way I feel it, the way I show it.
The Experience that you taught me.
You're in the presence of a flannel jacket,
that I haven't earned the right to wear.
You're not in the photos,
you're not in the jacket;
Neither am I.

In my wake are ruins
where wonderful flowers grow.
I will leave behind desolation,
but alive inside will be hope.
I will become Krishna,
if that's what it takes.
I will roll storm and fury,
across oceans, rivers. Across lakes.
Behind all my clouds,
to the observing eye,
you will find sunlight.
You will see the truth in the lie.

But kept in soft cages, where only grass grows,
the sounds of our heartbeats can deafen,
the plague can wind to a close.

And so it goes, where it goes.
Along mountains and inside homes.

We'll rise from the debris.
Singing songs as easy as leaning.
And terrible hope gives way
to wonderful damage and deep meaning.
In classrooms, where the calls are called,
we'll answer in ways too subtle to see.
Children, ostracized by accident of nature,
will finally not have to defend to just be.
I cannot say it'll be better.
I cannot say it'll be worse.
It will only have to be different.
Destruction as a cure for our curse.

Speak answer to riddle, at least as best you can.
Words can be poison, we learn much too young.
When we can't/won't help, can we call ourselves "man"?


And so it goes, where it goes.
A helping of heart with highs and lows.

And where it goes, when we find ourselves through,
is as much mystery to me,
as it's evident to you.

Push this weight from your shoulders,
my friend, I know that you can.
Do not make the mistake of wallowing
in this despair.
You are so much bigger than it.
So much better.
Yes, I hear you, I know that
we are human.
That we doubt.
Doubt so much.
They stopped making boot straps,
you say,
How then are we meant to pull
ourselves up?
Reach, my friend. Reach!
Inside of you there is so
much that you can do.
So much that you are,
if only you can find it in yourself
to know it like I do.
I know you, my oldest friend,
I know you so much better than
anyone else possibly could.
You are amazing.
You are great.
You are the only person that
can hold the light to guide the way.
Only you.
You have to see.
You have the know.
You have to believe me.
I know.
RISE!
Rise and be, old friend.
Rise and lead us through the dark.
In your presence, there is no dark.
There is only the way.
Your way.