Lifelines

It’s a tale many times in the telling
Of wisdom and wonder and enchantment foretold.
Captivating, yes compelling.
But catch it now, before you’re old (We’re so soon old.).
Cross country wide and free; a gypsy’s life by caravan
And what is yet to be is stretching wide, without a plan.
Try, if you can, to imagine just how you’re gonna end.
. . . You’re gonna end.
Past ships and planes and miles of dusty road,
It’s all been told . . .and then retold.
We’ve lived a thousand lives before, we the vagabonds of Earth
But let me try to tell to you my story, it’s all I own
Whatever be its worth.
It started in a coffeehouse so many years ago
Where poets of our century were wont to waste their days
And in those days did bright mindwaves cast their nets and flow
To catch up young unruly souls and charge them with the craze
For adventuring — for “something new”
To catch a star and follow wherever it should lead
To search out the holy answer to the ache of human need
To be the first new holy breed to wholly shake the Earth
To usher in a promised age, so many years in birth.
It was a time of carousels and colored lights;
A time of feeling grandly strong and right;
A time when Life was just beyond our sight.
What made it go? Which corner was the wrong one turned?
Or is it merely time to take things slow,
To gather up the threads of what we’ve learned?
The darkness cast upon us, how was it earned?
Oh yes, I meant to tell you of brilliant desert skies
And city street romances that sparkled ere they died.
Of Denver’s summer snowstorm and LA’s winter flood
And secret, solemn friendship pacts seal’d in summer blood.
Of a much awaited sunrise within a foreign town
Of food and flowers and incense freely passed around
Of turquoise rings & violent springs & jails of many brands
And music wafting through the streets
Of gentle smell of smoke so sweet
And wondrous madmen once to meet who read witchcraft in your hand.
And so much more; yes, lifetimes more.
I would give it all to you, asking nothing in return
But that you seek, in your own style, for yourself to learn
Of corners waiting yet to turn before our time is through.
And perhaps one day you’ll say to me:
“Yes, the answer’s here! Yes, the answer’s clear!”
And you will say to all of us: “Here’s what we must do.”
Before our time is through . . .