Nomad
*** NOMAD ***
(For Ian and Bryan)
The gifts just out of reach…Always?
Scoping the search?
With the contentments
Of peace to be found,
Buried like treasure…And
Hunted?
Beloved nomad
Seeking place
Among the ridges
Of the lost caves your eagles
Scan horizons
To discover, while watching
constantly over you —
Traveling with your long stretch
Of discontented camels,
Snorting and spitting,
Their loads grown heavier than
The darkness near descending;
Their eyes forever looking
Over the empty distances —
Perhaps as feared
As Earth’s edges —
For any, any possible oasis
Appealing to you with
Some hope of settling.
So do
Stop periodically,
To recall all you love. And
Bend, to measure sought ends,
Letting run
Handfuls of unfamiliar sand
Between your fingers — not
Worrying over spent years
Yet to come —
As you watch the grains of sand
Drizzling down, falling
To a familiar dune
To continue their endless rest.
Nomad, continuing the search
For that similar someplace
Of origin, for re-starting on
The pathways to the where-
Evers far from any ends…or
Before finding then truly
What was held all the while.
Consider that the sought ends
Could assuringly be meant
To wait for the journey’s close,
With much to be said for
Actually moving through reality
While the mind, too, may wish
To avoid doubts or deliberations
In stillnes —
Most happy to feel new breezes
Touch past; or to hear unfamiliar
Voices sing out greetings; and
For incongruities to shake
The soul closer to God.
The journey’s progress (surely
With some luck in the going,
Or help from a greater
Force if while staying)
Does occur in the there
Or the here, hopefully to be
Concluded in a spot for
Body and mind, which
Your eagle has eyed
In many fewer than forty years…
For you are loved, your way blessed.
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(c) sally young eslinger 2/25/22
Thanks be to God
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