Pilgrimage
They fought the tide to own some land
A fight I did not understand
They fought the plow, they fought the drought, they fought the debt
But yet, by God, ... they owned the pride
In retrospect, I'm still ashamed
My heart and soul were not engaged
A flippant mood was all I brought, with sighs, and whys and skipping rocks,
the day we made the pilgrimage
A stranger to this twilight zone
I was about to step upon the moon,
A cratered space of rocks and sage, of rolling hills, with no escape
She saw it differently, of course
And though her bones were weary, worn
her eyes were strong. She saw a home
Her age was then, what mine is now,
It had been her life. It was her vow
to come again, just one more time.
Ten years old, I'd been dragged along
I couldn't the great attraction
Overlooked her deep reaction
I missed the tears within her eyes
She scanned the place she left behind
Her gray eyes drinking up the sun,
I saw dust, I saw the sand,
Where she saw beauty, I saw none .....
Nothing more than a sea of weeds, crumbling brick, the rocky creek
A place to shuffle restless feet
The years passed by, and I would learn
a home is more than bricks and stone
The photograph I hold today means more to me than words can say
In the rubble she had found one valiant rosebush left behind
while smiling in the summer sun, among the rocky hills
I wish I could go back to then
But I can smile,… remembering.
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