The Rememberings

Reviewing my anatomy,
I see the stains of agony.

It isn’t chronic, it’s acute.
It weighs upon today’s recruit.

My wanting to get up and go,
Has gone to nil, and I am low.

A child in trouble, a child in loss.
I borrow fear and count the cost.

The cost for now is undefined.
And so I have a coiled mind.

I’ve seen this path for many more.
By those that I have served before.

I’ve seen these paths leading down.
How they look on without a sound.

So powerless to intervene.
So, they remain there in between.

Between their hope and their hell.
How they feel, they do not tell.

Maybe for they do not know,
What’s ahead upon that road.

But it’s their road nonetheless.
It’s mine now too, I must confess.

This path is pain, this path’s perverse.
Yet it can always be much worse.

And that belies my attitude,
To stay closer to gratitude.

To light a candle, to say a prayer,
To the abyss I’m too aware.

I may sometime long for these days,
When, to you, worse finds its way.