The emptiness that is my soul,
The hopelessness that lies this way,
Are each a temporary thing:
For moods are minutes in a day,
The day that life is in this span,
And questions come as answers flee,
As dreaming hovers, like the clouds
That swirl around us restlessly.
These chemicals that we call “us”
Are scattered bits of foreign stars,
With each a flickering, at best,
That maybe lights, or maybe mars
The footsteps of some other’s way.
This is the truth that solace knows:
That where we go, some other’s gone,
And someone in the future goes,
For we’re connected, though we feel
Apart, alone, and frankly, lost —
For empty roads and searching hearts
Both find the ones who life has tossed
About. Like you. I know it’s true,
For every bit of warm regard
You send my way, there is the trace
Of how well you know, “life is hard.”
But out there, on the road you’re on,
Are different detours and travails,
For though you’ve been rerouted, it
Cannot be truly said, “she fails –”
As long as you – and me as well –
Can be true to our loves, our friends,
And try our best from where we are,
And when we ought to, make amends,
Then barren times, and barren earth,
Need not dismay or set us back.
For every path is different, every
Surplus is a kind of lack
And it’s our choices make us, us.
Not circumstance, or skill, or looks,
What kind of car we own or drive,
How many cats, how many books —
Our character they say’s our fate.
I have not always welcomed this:
But I have seen the sunrise smile,
And I have felt my true love’s kiss,
So empty roads need not be so.
If I perspective take, and keep,
I can adjust to hills and turns
And when I stop, relax, and sleep,
And know, that though we be but mist,
We have a purpose here, today,
And that each cloud that wanders, will
Get lost, sometimes, along the way.
