Underneath a falling star
on my daddy’s daddy’s farm,
fireflies danced across the rye
like a mirror to the sky.
So I fell back into a front row seat
at the foot of the old initial tree.
No wish did I send out to the heavens,
just a prayer: Thank you, God, for this moment.
That’s a place where photographs
never capture even half.
And I’m no traveler, but I’ve been there.
Did you see my life before?
What a heavy load I bore
up a hill too steep to walk,
so I’d climb through falling rock.
But I fell to the bottom of a gorge.
I was held between emptiness
and more than I could bear.
Takes no tourist to proclaim that I’ve been there.
Any man can explain it.
I’ve been tossed and turned around.
I’ve been lost and I’ve been found.
So I’m no traveler, but I’ve been there.
Just a few steps away from that very place
lies my grandpa’s grave,
and the words on the stone
send a chill through my bones:
“Life’s no trip from birth to death.
Life’s beyond our final breath.”
Copyright 2001. All rights reserved.