All These Years

Like a ragged immigrant I’ve wandered, climbed through this empty world. I’ve plodded through the pathless woods that swallowed my sun like some angry drunkard. Always, I journeyed on by night, I limped like an instinctive cripple, charting ways by the satin stars.

But I have learned from the night; the full moon’s given me directions, answers drifting down. I know there is no certain way for me, and, yet, I find my own land. Somehow searching I become my own geography. I know too, there is longing and that steady ache remains.

I’d cry if it would help, but tears do nothing for the crumbling heart. It cannot heal itself, the mind can’t mend its tattered chemistry. Only courage, much like love, can bind my wounds and send me on.

Patricia Kelly Gangas from her first book of poetry, All These Years

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