The day breaks sunny…
There’s still a dewy chill about…
I see the distant hill…
I fancy hiking the faraway path…
I imagine the panoramic scene…
But my ankles ache…
Beneath my bone tired shins…
And I can do the math…
It is a lovely path indeed…
But not mine this day…
Perhaps never my path…
Perhaps never my path…
To trod the jungles of a foreign land…
Like my dad and his shrapnel-shattered shin…
Or die in an angry hail of mindless bullets…
Or be collateral damage in a war that surrounds me…
On every side where every path is a Möbius band…
Coaxing me back to needless death…
Perhaps never my path…
Perhaps never my path…
But the paths of so many others…
Who thought they took the smart path…
The safe path; the only path they saw…
Drowning in the razor-wired river of fear…
Whistles of a distant hawk…
I hear and heed and whistle back…
Perhaps that is how a missile sounds afar…
Before the bomb explodes us all to body parts…
Perhaps never my path…
Perhaps never my path..
But the path of so many others is filled with fear…
Choked by the stench of death…
Smeared by the char of fire and wrath…
Who will see the panoramic view instead…
Who will see that bird and bee…
Dance with flower and tree most lovingly…
Who will take that path…
If it is never my path…
If it is ever my path…
To stumble up the rock-strewn way…
To look about and report back…
To those who could not make the trek…
Then however much I lack…
I must play the only play I have…
Recount the story as well as I am able…
Wrapped in song or poem or fable…
Unwrap the self-placed blinders…
That make it seem that all they’ve lost…
Can be replaced and sanctified by hate…
While I see chaos in the heart and soul…
The tale must be told in bold and sold…
The scroll of right and reason…
In daylight clear and present…
If it is ever my path…
If it is ever my path…
Even to tell a single seeming stranger…
About the ever smoking dangling danger…
I must dance that deadly dance…
I must chance that deadly chance…
Chance the wrath…
It is my path…
It is my path…
And I will whistle to the soaring hawk…
And I will hum to every buzzing bee…
And I will breathe it to the birds and trees…
And I will find and feel the love in every blade…
That strives to push aside the dirt and feel the light…
I cannot take each and every path…
But I can take one path…
And so may you take your path…
And we can together do the math…
Together, we can do the math.
How the Nightingale Learned to Sing
The Only Them that Counts is All of Us
petersironwood 