I guess everyone's life
To some degree or another
Before the end
Is faced with that
Which they never could imagine
And I hold in my hand
The antithesis of dilemmas collided
Encrusted in the now dried dirt
The raging torrent now subsided
On one side is knowledge
That no truth ever came unshackled
That didn't need to be free
And head on is the fearful ego
Still shivering in the darkness
Is fear and survival
Clinging  like brothers
Beside me - in this flimsy tree

Minutes passing like hours
As Shadows bounce resounding
And my refuge shakes to dislodge
The strange parasite
Where it shouldn't be

That night I had sat listening
To the rain without a clue
To the dilemma that awaits
Rising up all around
Till finally it has bound  
Me to the fate that awaits
When Nature take the reins
Of our life
When that sudden splash
Set in motion the circumstances
Bringing my truck to a dead stop

Add to the mix a dead Phone Zone
And I just cursed my abject miserable luck
I wasn't really too worried - not really
I could always start walking
But I drive this same highway
Night and day for 10 years now
And I knew help would come
Surely someone would be passing by soon
To ask if I needed assistance
And I'd give them  my brother's number Tell him I'm stranded come give me a hand
Then he would appear like a western Cavalry
To chase away that cutthroat
And his evil band

So then I lay my head back - to relax
for just a second or two
When I woke up the road was a river
And I was floating- to where
I didn't know
But I knew then I knew I knew
This was not good
Really now
I really said just that
This is not good this is not good
Then  myself I really chided
For being stupid
Then came the time when I collided
With a clump of trees
And then began sinking
My life is over my life is over
Was the words interrupting my thinking

So I took my dead zone cell phone
Turning on record to record my last
My last regrets my last promises unkept
My wishes my wants
My failures my dreams
Everything said unfiltered and unedited
With  nothing filled in between
Having done it in as calm a place
As I could muster given the circumstance
Then wrapped with plastic and duct tape
Slicing a slit in my once  precious and
Pristine leather seats
And shoving it down deep into the foam
Hoping someday it might manage to find its way
It's way back home

I don't have a clue
How long I was absorbed
By the summation of my life and being
When I felt the rear end of my truck swing and sway freeing itself
And starting away to become
Just a new piece of flotsam
In this three hundred yards wide
50 mile an hour River of water
Now carrying cars and people's lives
Rushing headlong into destruction
Unrelenting and unabsolved

I don't know how but I managed
To struggle up into the tree
Just before the truck went under
I think I remember ... As I scrambled
Seeing it pop up before disappearing
Into the abyss that I was now fully aware
Seems to be roaring at my survival
Determined... it seemed  
Wanting to take me away

That was 3 weeks back now
Physically I'm fully recovered
Mentally I guess you could just say we'll see
9 hours before I was discovered

Today they called to say my truck
Awaiting my appraisal and decision
Insurance you know but it need not matter
When it arrived it was not anything I recognized
No hope of any Salvage - save  one
Cllimbing into the driver's window
I reached into the slit I made in the seat
Till my fingers came to rest upon it

Pristine and perfect dry and intact
So now I'm sitting in the driveway
Already the master of my new truck
In my hand is my past... My present
Absolutely my whole life
Wrapped in the dreaded mud
Was what... Was... The very core of me
The real me - complete
With absolute honesty
And I had to decide
What was wrong or what was right
Do I live with how close I came
Letting everyone hear my words including me without listening first
To let all hear the goodbye
When I knew I'd die
Or do I listen first
And thereby throwing away
Something that died the night that I lived