The Promise

1973 for Tom Rogers age 15

My foortateps echo through hospital halls

I want to turn back as each foor falls.

Doors slide by, I'm searching for one,

At room 12 C my search will be done.

The nurse at his door stopa me to speak

Saying, "Maybe he'll live; be careful he's weak."

I enter his room praying him sleeping,

The horror of my mission upon me creeping.

I gazed at his face through gauze and tape,

Memorizing forever every feature and shape.

The doctors had said, "Maybe he'll live,

If that blessing God chooses to give.

But remember, my girl, he won't be the same,

Feebleminded and crippled he will always remain."

If only the coctors knew my promise to him!

They would never dare predict a future so dim.

Slowly his eyes opened blinking, adjusting to the light,

A few moments taken to regain clear sight.

Then he looked at me, pleading, I knew,

For the one thing I wished never to do.

But with tears in my eyes I nodded my head,

And once again sleeping was the man in the bed.

One quick glance showed the room clear,

Of all but us two no one was near.

Opening his mouth with fingers that shook,

I dropped in my promise; all my courage it took.

Driving home through streets wet slick,

My heart was heavy and my soul felt sick.

"Promise me you'll never let me suffer and cry,

If I'm aver disabled please help me to die."

His existence ceased and his words were my own,

Now I suffer and cry and feel I'm alone.

Then a horn blares loud and lights flash bright!

Where am I? Lord! I feel light.

There are people here all reaching to me,

but among them all only one face I see.

I'd kept my promise and felt bereft,

I should have know I would never be left.

Laughing together we began to run,

Hand in hand to touch the sun.

We had sworn to love 'till death did us part,

But even death couldn't

It hadn't the heart.

The Shadow

1973

You walk through life with a shadow behind you

Always seeking, trying to find you.

You work, you play, try to run away,

But look behind and the shadow you'll find.

Silent it is for many long years

Until the distance between you it clears.

Elusive the voice, little your choice,

You are the prey and you can't get away.

You run down the road but the road runs back!

Shadow, now substance, makes the attack.

Take your last breath and surrender to death

The race is done and death has won.

A Rock

1973 for my brother Herbert

Deep in the jungle the path runs narrow

Winding and twisting yet straight as an arrow.

All along the path the animals call

The wild ones scream! with no sound at all.

Life is as definite as all of this

Pure hell, it's true, but too pure bliss.

These days a rock is all you can trust

"So solid!" you say, but Lo!

It's mere dust.

Drifter

1973 age 14

On a day that dawned you were here

And like a doe a fawn we seemed so near.

But a blink of the eye and I turned around

and empty sky was all that I found.

You had drifted on following your soul

The urge to be gone too strong to control.

It lives in the heart of many a man

You'll never depart from the drifting demand.

So be off and away and travel far free

but return someday my drifter to me.