North American Dreaming: Moving On
William Burkholder's poem indicates that life involves constantly moving on towards the next promising peak.
Do visit Troubadour21 magazine which Bill co-edits www.troubadour21.com
I have walked the dusted roads of summer,
Powdered and dry between my toes.
I have felt the blue wind of lignite sky,
Its color hidden by the night.
I have collaborated with a murder of crows,
Their caws and my screams a duet.
Road kill, scavenging morsels of neglect.
I have found the salmon dying upon the weir,
weeping for their lost journey.
I have stood on the beaches,
Supplanted by driftwood flotsam.
Human wreckage, no foundations,
Sinking with each waves wash.
I have sat atop ivory towers,
Surveying a world lost,
For I had thrown it away.
Jetsam gone with a flash,
Self perpetrations.
A deathblow to high ideal and blind pride.
I have held a cobblestone,
its artistic chalky red
my mentor.
Building hope, wisdom, and future endeavors.
I have built walls,
Walls that I have had to climb and deconstruct.
Walls of hate,
Walls of indifference,
walls of self loathing,
Guilt,
Addiction.
All ramparts guarding a worldly nothing.
Stone by stone, brick by brick removed,
And then, renewed...
I found myself standing upon mountain tops,
Under the gaze of the old man of the mountain.
His smile and approving eye
Letting me know it was OK to tarry forth,
move on and find the next peak,
To place my stone at the next cairn and move on,
always moving, moving, moving on.
