Pilgrims and Poets

Photo by Les Argonautes on Unsplash

I belong to the pilgrims and the poets
Some of them fell off the earth
searching for Truth and the
right words.
They looked for
road maps on the faces of elders,
and sometimes found
only judgment.

Still,
they found God,
in the blisters on the souls of their feet,
and in their cracked-open hearts,
devastated by hope and
uplifted by grief.

Called to sit
at the feet of divinity,
a child’s awe taking shape on their face.
On those mornings,
joy erupted,
illuminating anyone
lucky enough to be near.

Other days, they couldn’t
recall with sufficient force
that it existed,
and they got
sidetracked following despair,
mistaking it for wisdom.

This longing devours small talk,
drives ambition.
It drew me to places of rapture,
and to face my own depravity.
Somehow, I…