I had walked this path many times before
In my mind when I thought of higher things.
When my world was complete with life’s mundane items,
The path appeared in my brain like a visual ping
The track ranged narrow and long,
With nary a passer by.
As if it was meant for a lone walker coming along,
Along valleys low and ridges high.
Lit by sun by day and moon by night,
The path stayed long and true.
No meander to left or right,
Ready for the walker to whom it was due.
Time passed by and the path faded out,
From memory and mental view.
It was not long before I was on my own path,
Studies complete and now with duties to do.
For the boy had soon grown into a man
With bills to pay and family to provide.
No time for young dreams or any former plan,
There were crevasses to climb and crests to ride.
Careers in place and stable foundations laid,
Slowly and surely I followed the Dream.
Sometimes, my mind was on a journey back,
As I saw the path again, narrow, long and clean.
Footsteps there were along the trail now,
Of whose I could not say.
Belonging to those of a lone walker,
Trekking his or her lonesome way.
There were now parts of dark and parts of day,
Bright light between blocks of dark grey,
Bursts of sun and veils of rain
Like heartbreaking toil mixed with times of play.
The life of dreams I worked to build
Was not long before it crumbled to dust,
As strife, pain, anguish bubbled and brewed
Then boiled over into a volcano of shame, betrayal and disgust.
As among the ruins I walked and strove to retrieve
What semblance of life I still had left to brave,
Scattered memories and images of sun stood firm,
As if wanting to embed in my brain to save.
Slow and arduous was the route
To health that I had to endure.
At times I thought to say “Enough! Let me just give Life the boot!”
But friends and loved ones turned the rudder of my ship to homely shore.
Then one day in my mind
The path again appeared, but in a different way.
Where once there was a long and narrow trail,
Now was a route that was paved and shone like day.
I was at the head and as I turned back,
I saw in my mind’s eye a kaleidoscopic ray
That my memories and images of sun had combined to form,
A glassy scene that shone rainbow colours of brightest day.
T’was then that I understood
For whom the path had been all this time.
The record of my journey through harvest and blighted flood,
Reminder that I was always in His care sublime.
That though my journey had had its share
Of danger, shame and betrayals rude,
I was never once away from care
It was all turned from bad to the Greatest Good
