The Way Back

One more step

Then another

Another,

No! This really is too hard!

Pause …

Rest …

But I can’t stay here,

Here is no place to stay,

And I don’t want to waste the steps I’ve taken.

Pause …

Think … yes, pray!

On a journey as impossible as this

Prayer becomes necessity, like breath,

I breathe in Hope, I breathe out all my fear,

And tears will wash the signposts.

See, a few more steps

Taken, that I hardly noticed,

Breathing, praying,

One foot following the other,

And look how far I’ve come!

But oh!

Look how far I have to go!

Breathe … pray … and weep …

Nobody told me about the angels.

I cannot name their faces, but I feel their touch,

In the helpless chasm of night

When serenity has fled

They are there beside me

And I know in my not-knowing.

This is a difficult climb!

Someone once said, “The descent to Avernus is easy”.

They forgot to mention

That the climbing back

Will scrape off all your skin until you quiver

Like a newborn creature, bare before the world.

Somehow I continue.

I have turned aside and then retraced my steps

Too many times to count.

I am all done in

And yet, each day, somehow,

I have moved forward

On this narrow path whose bourne I do not know

Except it is the only way to go.

Sometimes I see,

In dreams most glorious, my Father’s house,

Waiting there still,

But is there love for me?

But the stranger things become,

The more familiar

The path becomes.

I can almost taste

The bread on my Father’s table.

Why do I see

A nail-scarred hand hold out the wine for me?

And the angels whisper

I am almost home.