Go Ahead. Ask me.

Go ahead. Ask me.
Ask me what rock I was once chained to
and for how long, long enough I nearly drowned
in the rising tides.
Ask me who set the chains,
and why I let them
and why I let the tides cover me so far,
what insanity, for insanity it was,
that led to my singing as the tide crawled ever higher,
why I let myself drown.
As me who set me free, sure I was dead,
or dead enough
Go ahead. Ask me.

Ask me how I was set adrift
and had to learn to swim all over again,
like a child thrown from a bridge,
which, the family legend has it
my grandfather and his four brothers
learned to swim.
They were fast learners, making it to shore
minutes after being tossed from the bridge,
I was a slow learner,
unaware exactly where the shore was,
unable to see it, having to learn geography
of the soul anew with each storm tossed stroke.

Go ahead, Ask me
about the journey back,
the travel and Gulliver-like stopovers,
the wrong turns and the good choices
and the learning which was which.
Ask me about finding God and myself
were in the same yard more often than I knew,
As me about the discovery and the friends along the ways
and the occasional meeting with the great liar
in all his disguises.

Go ahead. Ask me.
Ask me if the journey is done
now that I live in my own little paradise,
surrounded by love and opportunity
and second, third and countless extra chances.
Ask me,
and I will tell you no.
There is so much to learn still.
The old lessons, some of them at least,
do not hold.
The new ones are still mysteries.
Everything is new to the ressurected
and I am a slow learner.
Ask me, and I will tell you.

About this poem

Inspired by an internet friend who is climbing back from his own tragedies, making me remember my own journey. It is good to remember some times, just how far we have come, and with luck, how much more we have ahead of us.

The story of my grandfather Lassiter and his brothers is mostly true.

Gulliver, of course, refers to Gulliver’s Travels, one of my favorite novels when I was young.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom