Start walking, don’t look back, for home beckons you stay; it’s no longer your own and could break your heart, stymie conviction.
A mind filled with doubts, fearful of ghostly warnings, empty of knowing, sees the road ahead dimly:
A thrill to face, a bit foreboding.
A distant star caught your eye,
Your interest tickled by a flicker of light, you risk the chance.
Throw off your cloak of self protection, trudge into a thicket of thorny expectation, take a first step, and then another, packing courage, ignore inevitable pits, and follow your call into wilderness.
Leave behind home and friends, forge ahead, follow dreams with little light or apperception.
Marked with your blood you march in hope of avoiding a heated conflagration
Read signs painted in their own dried blood by strangers and the occasional prophet, pointing in various confusing directions.
The path forward twists and turns, tiring your vision and moral attention. The ups and downs batter the heart, disrupt the mission.
Finally, you find a place to call home. But your skin, thin and bruised, carries once painful scars.
You think you might settle down when you stare with dismay in a mirror, seeing how much your changes, then bravely smile back at what has not.
You shed tears at old wounds and put on a fresh shirt, head out the door; the journey engaged ends when your ashes are planted in dirt.
But for now you have a good friends who don’t make fun of your appearance and can relate to similar mistakes. They know the struggle and the cost of strong.
From years of living in solitary you have learned what it is to be alone, but now you enjoy the sweet pleasure of sharing the tales of adventure and laugh at your sempiternal search for the mystic.
And in exchange of deep conversation you may recognize this consolation: faithful living often brings a slow and beautiful transfiguration.
THH
3/4/25
Thoughts Have Hands 