Kansas

Kansas 10/25/2011

Follow the black ribbon highway
Across a dry and thirsty land
As it stretches out into the nothingness
Back to the place
Where I was born.

Endlessly growing into the horizon
We can trace back the line
But no man can ever go backwards
Without losing something first.

The loss is the first thing
the thing that finally grows us
And the thing that helps us heal
But at a cost so great
We barely survive.

The road to the future
Is made in the past
Coming from where we were
And made by who we are.

I push myself along
Even though I am tired
And want to rest
Dragging lots of heavy baggage
the kind you can't leave behind.

It is now a part of me
A part I cannot lose
A hovering black cloud above me
And a memory I bear.

Time itself grinds on
And turns bones into dust
Chewing up all we built
And slowly crushing all.

The road to hell
leads in many directions
Because not all roads lead to God
But rather that is the hard one
The steep and rugged path
That weighs down every step.

I remember the route
And I remember the feel
As I turn back the clock
And drive into the black.

A dark and dusky memory
That falls like a hammer
A cold day in May
When we buried our mother.

We saw the old farmhouse
Abandoned and haunting
But I was the only one
Who dared go inside.

The wood was rotted
As I walked through the rooms
Tracing her steps
And going back in time.

I had to pry the door open
To find the rickety stairs
Barely wide enough for me to climb
As I ascended into her dreams.

I made it to the top
And I saw the rotted beds
Back where my mother slept
A little orphan of the plains.

It is a strange feeling
And its meaning changes with time
Morphing into a new beginning
In the son
I hold in my hands.

We found her mothers grave
And there we buried her ashes
At last reunited
In the dust of the earth.

There must be a heaven
And I shall see you all there
A place better than this world
Upside down and backwards.

A place without pain and loss
With plenty of water and laughter
Where no one dies of cancer
And slowly starves to death.

The world is full of pain
But regret is the worst of all
Because no one ever forgets
What costs them the most.

She remembered the dust storms
And she remembered a barren land
Gritty enough to fight
But tender enough to love.

A Whirlwind took Greensburg
But old Dodge still remains
The place where they raised me
Stronger than where I am.

Courage, determination, and persistence
That is what they had
Building up from nothing
Without anyone to help.

To them
I owe my life
And to them I returned
Knowing every road
And feeling every mile.

Many shall come
And many shall steal
But even a few
As solid as iron
Can withstand the many.

I have a heart
That is loyal until the end
And I have a brain
That sees and knows.

Courage is in me
And pain has made me stronger
And my broken heart
Has sewn itself back together
Bringing me back
And bringing me home.

Let them do their worst
Because the heart matters more
Formed from the seed
That dies in the ground.

I am grown from the inside out
And I am the harvest of my times
Unafraid and staring straight dead level
Even if hell shall come.