Solace (Audio Poem)

FATHER, while we toil here--

whipped though we are by life's branches
and pricked by this Forest's
thorns,

the long, pointed thorns which would hold us back,
point us away from our pursuit;

and tripped as we are by the
underbrush,
the dead, crumbling remains of yesteryear,
the year of falling, losing our leaves, being stripped

bare

by the shivering wind's taking from us all we would
hold on to, dashing our hopes to the ground in a
twirling,
twisting,
spiraling,
fluttering decent,

piling them one on the other until they have become
not the road in which we would walk,
but the barrier in our path--

I find
s o l a c e
in YOU alone.