Outsiders and Survivors

A Poem

In the reds of dawn, I see the orange of my own dusk Grey storms of life, I stand strong at my own helm And the sea of existence in a battered world undulates Wildly abandoned upon the world’s throes Harken, ye travelers, lift up your worn mugs Drink mightily and merrily from blessed cups Your soul is always yours, they cannot steal that They’ll take everything else, stay your hearty course

Sing loudly as you go with joy in your voice Tramps and gypsies, sailors and whores I think of you as November winds boldly blow And turn up my collar, to their promised misdeeds They’ll not break us, these wholly unworthy foes For they know not our spirits, but just what they see With their soulless, listless eyes and their greed Make way for the outsiders, we may be the only survivors

Who will carry the ancient wisdom, continue to pray? Not they, with their gadgets running away Skies open up and hell falls on the earth, we stay Watching them burn in their own baffling dismay No one laughs as they go, but we all shed a tear For what could have been, instead of this fear They kept saying it would get better next year That’s when we drank haughtily of dark strong beer

Now the world’s all dried up and burning with death Of our own doing, will we still be able to take a deep breath? Somewhere, somehow there is a light that always shines In this bleakness, I turn and look for it now A censer swings lightly, while sweet holy incense wafts Voices sing joyful, in this the sixth hour My own inner light rises and soars I bow now my head and say thank you, sweet Lord.