Summer Soldier

You stand at the end of the pier,
staring downstream at the dark clouds,
watching them approach, implacable and angry,
bearers of fury and rain.

You know what is to come.
more than once you have stood, soldier still
pretending the raindrops, thick and heavy,
wind whipped, lacked the power to hurt.

But all things can bring pain, even the most precious –
water, love, the search for what is beyond.
You know this, and yet you stand,
ready to stand on the front line of the storm.

Your lover looks out of her window, sure you are mad,
your loose shirt flapping in the breeze, ruffling loud,
You look like a scarecrow more than a warrior,
fragile and foolish, nothing quite fitting together.

She worries for you, even knowing you have stood here
on the edge of calamity again and again.
It is your dancing partner, your secret love,
to stand tall in the face of elements stronger than you,

more powerful than you can hope to be,
to risk wind and lightening, the claps of thunder
that echo across the water.
You stand, while all else blows away,

and the old debris is replaced with fresh flotsam,
and you know you are alive by the water’s sting
and the rough wood beneath your feet.
You know you are alive as you taste

The faint salt of the sea, carried far.
No one else feels this. No one else tastes it.
You are the only fool in the storm, more certain than anyone
that you are, so very, alive.

About this poem

Facing our fears make us feel alive. Not safe. Not joyful. Not secure. But oh so alive.

Be well. Travel wisely.

Tom