An Extra Pair of Angel’s Wings

An Extra Pair of Angel’s Wings

(“Nevertheless, you are doing the right thing if you obey the royal Law in keeping with the Scripture, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’” James 2:8)

I have paid my dues for being unwise,
(that’s putting it mildly)
I have missed my deadlines, wildly looking back
at what might have been.
And I wonder where I left my heart this time.

I want to walk the mountain trail,
feel the rocky floor. I want to breathe the
snowy air. I want to drink from chattering streams,
but I cannot do it alone.

I walk, day this, day that,
alone. And yet if someone offers to walk with me,
I usually shut down, just say no.

I need a nameless soul, unformed clay,
without definitions or conditions. If
I know too much about you, I may fear to be myself.

Yet, you know more about me than most others.
Has this led us to a cliff of no return? Did someone block
the access down the mountain? Is the trail marked, “one
way
only”?

I am weary. Overworked? Perhaps overlooked.
The valley calls me, plush and green where the robins sing,
and hawks glide along the upper frame. I want
one
who has heard my song to
sing it back to me just one more time.

And here I am, writing about me. My impulses to
stretch beyond myself are muted; my heart is
either shrunken
or hardened. Is it possible that passions
that once filled my heart
have leaked out and dried in the summer drought?

For one more day the tears fill my eyes and have
nowhere to fall except upon my naked feet. And
one more day I’ll walk and listen and breathe and
search to see if anyone has left an extra pair of
angel’s wings along the path.