A Long Walk

Ah, the ups and downs.
Riding the waves.
Drifting like wood, sun-bleached and silky smooth.
Rolling with the heaving swell
Breathing blue bosom of the Universe
Ah, yes.
The ups and downs
Of Life.

Letting go is how I feel, especially this time of year,
When colors change and leaves Fall,
And another energy nova-blast, the tour, comes to pause.
I won’t say ‘end’ because that’s not quite true.
Only semi-colons here, not full stops, will do.
Death may prove me wrong on this existential point
But I suspect when I have breathed my last,
Celebration will indeed go on.

Strange indeed to feel so empty,
Yet so completely full and simply
Goes the poem by Robert Frost: “Miles and miles to go before I sleep”
Simple words, yet they affirm
The feeling in these tired but happy
Bones and feet.

Van and equipment, all returned; musicians and dear friends too.
Last bills paid and now
Here I am
Cast up on the sand one more time,
One last wave.

Always is the case there follows a gap
And even so, I know
This too shall pass.
What lingers now, a sweet kind of pain
Whose only way to sooth I know the knack, and that
Is a long walk somewhere
There and back.