That Island Beyond

Have you ever walked a countless miles

Tired to the bone without stopping a while

And finally arrived at the step of your home

To learn that you have not a key to the door?

Have you dug a tunnel through boulders for years

In the knowledge of standing on soft morning grass

And finally broken through the last of the stones

Only to find a dark forest of thorns?

Have you battled rough seas or floated on still waters

Torn yet aimless with no sight of a shore?

And then through a mist of memories bygone

Have you spotted a wondrous island beyond?

And coming alive rowed like never before

With an urgency to stretch on cool sands under trees

Only to find the island submerged?

Oh yes! I have all of these done

Oh yes! I have cried, shattered and stung.

But a faceless form, it urges me on

And I keep alive the call of my core

To walk, to dig, to row some more

For what I must have before I am gone...

The key to my home

The soft grass to stand on

The stretch on cool sands on that island beyond.