Toward The Promised Land

Toward The Promised Land
© Surazeus
2024 04 18

Because each individual in the world 
savors strangeness of private memories, 
we tell each other stories of mute ghosts 
who haunt our lazy sun-gold afternoons 
with flashes of times and places long gone, 
our secret world that vanished in the past. 

Though more than forty years of life have passed 
in swirling currents of cultural change, 
transforming world I knew when I was young, 
I carry passion of juvenile faith 
still glowing bright in engine of my heart 
that nurtures purpose of my will to live. 

Calm energy of city social life, 
that carried me down shady streets of hope 
across landscape of businesses and homes, 
gleams bright in private vision of my eyes 
though I now live in strange land far away, 
inspiring me to savor this new hour. 

Alone in front yard of home I now own, 
I stand under oak where the raven dreams, 
and think of every house where I have lived 
across this land from sea to shining sea, 
fifty different homes in fifty-nine years, 
forever wandering toward the Promised Land. 

Why should I be surprised that I am lost, 
since my ancestors journeyed across Earth 
three hundred thousand years on quest for truth 
from Egypt to Sumeria to India to China 
then back along high mountains of the world 
to wave-washed misty Isle of Avalon. 

Since Epona first tamed the wind-swift horse, 
and Helius designed the four-wheeled cart, 
my ancestors traveled ten thousand years 
Scythia to Scotland, planting apple seeds, 
then sailed across the wild Atlantic sea, 
escaping kings to live in paradise. 

Always escaping royal police states, 
controlled by fanatics of mind control 
who rule with tyranny from castle towers, 
they journeyed west into the wilderness 
from Massachusetts to wild Oregon 
where I was born at far edge of the world. 

Now paradise is once again oppressed 
by conservative fascists who demand 
we slave to build global empire of wealth, 
but paradise is lost in parking lots 
where the blind bard sings epic tale of fools 
while I wander lost toward the Promised Land.