I’ve walked the ways of curlews and grasshoppers,
through meadows and pine trees, muddy lanes,
valleys of mists and cliffs where choughs called
to my soul and saw sun gilded branches and
great ocean waves holding the glory of gold.
===
I’ve walked hospital corridors, shared shed tears,
watched the light go from a sick man’s eyes
and known the weight of human compassion,
following down the church behind the coffin
holding love and sore grief heavy with hope.
=====
I’ve walked in the footsteps of sacrificial saints,
along stained streets, across once pretty parks,
and church yards where spent dirty needles
tell the sadness and pain of dreams hard won
being lost in a haze of poverty and violence.
====
I’ve walked in the halls of wealth and fame,
where stalk the fears that the mask will fail
and falling reveal the fresh face of failure,
and money bites into the soul and extracts
like a drug the will to be free of its chains.
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Head bent pressing forward, pushing for
a place to rest, a place of peace a place
where footprints in the sand are not mind
but the one who carries me, the one who
caring for all our troubles with his life.
