The World had Split and Crumbled and Torn

The world had split and crumbled and torn,

And nothing was left the same.

“The sky has fallen,”

The people all cried,

While tying to maintain the game.

But the game had changed,

And for the better,

But not many wanted to see

The life giving freedom

Awaiting discovery

There in the midst of the rubbled systems and laws.

Rather than obedience and duty,

A possibility of creativity and inspiration

Lay there in the ashes,

Purified by the fires,

Gleaming like gold and silver,

Waiting to be embraced

And forged into

Tools and vehicles of hope

And teeming wonder.

But the masses gathered on the beach of life

And built a bonfire,

Tromping out an SOS

In large letters in the sand,

Til finally a giant “rescue ship”

Came sailing in to save them

With the promise of protection,

Provision and control.

They formed long lines

And submitted to procedures designed, of course,

For the good of all.

Vaccinated, anti-septic-ated and medicated adequately,

They boarded the vessel en masse.

I stood on the banks of the sparkling waters

As they huddled into the dark bowels of the gray tanker.

A barker mongered more fear,

“Last call! For anyone wanting to come and live!”

“Come and die!” I thought

As I turned and headed the opposite direction,

Into the spruces and verdant timbers,

The sunlight making a brilliant show

Of the million different shades of green

All dancing there together.

And that ship sailed,

And me, not on it,

And painfully slow did it embark—

In a week’s time,

Still in the shallow harbor

And still within ear shot.

I could hear them

Splitting hairs about semantics,

And some deeper rumblings,

Truly hungering over the rations not enough.

And a few friends stood on the deck,

Looking at me with pleading eyes,

“It’s not too late,” they begged me.

“You could still come jump on!”

“You could still jump off!” I shouted back!

“It’s not too late for you, either!”

But ever so slowly a chasm grew

That corrupted all communications.

And finally, all that lie there between:

A peace,

A lull,

A silence,

And out of the silence, a song,

Of birds that chirped and clucked and sang,

And the tops of trees swishing in the wind,

And waves in a rhythm of tidal highs

And lows and ins and outs sublime.

And as I stood gazing across the sea,

Letting the sunshine on my face,

Letting the doubts and what if’s drown

In the wake of the trail there in the water.

I smiled,

And I felt the presence

Of another Soul

There with me.

One other human

Had not boarded the great boat going no where,

And I turned in excited bliss to see,

It was you.

-jenn long