Redemption

Sometimes you get a weird feel:
a sense of missing voice at home.
And though much foliage dress the stumps,
while fame waves obliving draughts,
and friends and family comfort you
and music soothes the weary soul:
You can’t get over what you lost.

It pinches like a blade at fits,
and steeps you down in numb dwellings
of what came close and slipped away,
and never became yours.

Not that you weren’t worthy ‘nough.
Nor that you wouldn’t fit the boots.
Not as if you’d squander jewels
or shirk a sacrifice that’s due.

But perhaps from your younger years
you bore good many favoured flairs,
and kind patrons along the way
who opened doors without your knock.

And as those patrons shed away
while mortals gulped the pills of skills,
you crashed in novice confusion:
like Senna at Imola,
like Caesar at Curia,
or Napolean at Waterloo.

So be it, if this is fate.
The clouds reform, the forests grow
again with pristine hue.
Your spirit cannot die.
And if Dantes could elude d’if,
and Christ the nails of cross,
you’ll too climb the bride to saddle
like young Lochinvar.