My Raw Unscripted Life

A cement ribbon, pale and hard,
Cuts through the wild of the tangled yard.
I run with eyes on the dusty gray,
Counting the inches that pass away.
My chin is tucked, my gaze is low,
Bound to the pace of the things I know,
A narrow world of footfalls and breath,
While the forest around me is vast as death,
And bright as life, if I’d only see
The green-gold reach of the canopy.

But looking down is a heavy art,
A weight that settles inside the heart.
I’ve walked in shadows I made myself,
Stacking my fears on a crowded shelf,
A story of lack, a song of “not enough,”
Walking a path that I’ve labeled as rough.
When the spirit is filtered through beliefs of the small,
We build up the ceiling and thicken the wall.
We name it a shortage, of peace or of gold,
And the body believes what the mind has been told.

The joints start to stiffen, the breath becomes tight,
As the cells try to signal we’re losing the light.
Inflammation is a language, a physical plea:
“You are not walking in who you were meant to be.”
We are the abundance, the source, and the flow,
Yet we mirror the lack in the places we go.
What we cast as a shadow, the world reflects back,
In a car that is stalled or a job that we lack.

So, I lift my chin. I break the spell.
I look at the world where the miracles dwell.
Suddenly, the path is a mile of grace,
Turning and twisting through natural space.
It’s abundant and wide, it’s a vision uncurled,
The hidden riches of a breathing world.
And though I can’t see where the final turn ends,
Where the tall grass rises or the river bends,
I know that the path is already there,
Held in the stillness of the morning air.

I cannot see the whole design,
For I haven’t reached the vantage line.
I must move forward, step by step,
To the promises that the horizon kept.
I am not the lack, the ache, or the fear;
I am the traveler, and the way is clear.
I look up to see what has always been mine:
A path made of light, by a hand divine.