"As the tide returned the echo / Of his remembered name"

Castaway With what was left of his childhood faith Which never asked questions anyway With what he learned at the library Which always stayed locked up on Sunday With a reconstructive memory Which had stood to stand him in good stead A mindful process a sense of play Curricula curled up in his head Approved by the university Papers in order and filed away Certified to be one of the same With these and with his own point of view Like a letter signed and sealed and sent By himself with no one else to blame As continent as he was content He undertook to take his journey Beneath and beyond these basic things He had a sense of his destiny Of existential entitlement By which all he had to do was be And really being he really was He was curious to be and do And to find out what things really meant To wonder about and follow through If only as an experiment Was his heart broken or was it bent? His curiosity gave him wings He never could afford to buy them So asking why and answering why Not put them on and go and be gone He put on his wings to go and went And from the perspective of the sky Up doing what that perspective does In circular linearity He looked at life beginning with death Wondering how it was how it was From the funerals of yesterday He had to remember to forget Since he came to live and they to die As the way it was without regret Remember not to forget to live To forgettable temporary Things remembered as reality Which seemed unreal from what he could see And took all the hope he had to give Neither proven nor disproven yet With people chasing themselves around Without ever going anywhere Turning without really knowing why Sad on the silent merry go round Just after closing time at the fair Down from up he could see nothing to Stand out as the only answer or The only question even as he Overlooked what he was looking for And he was uncertain certainly His curiosity failed him then Frightened by his nightmare coming true And feathers fluttered downwind like rain Since he had soared too close to the sun Waxed warm in his curiosity And though he fell hard to the sea when He fell somehow he survived his fall Remembered now forgetting its pain Where washed up on the beach after all There he felt like he had been and done He was one of the one and the same One of the same who could not recall By himself with no one else to blame Who wished he had someone even so To remember his forgotten name The tide withdraws itself from the beach Trying the notions of all and each And he felt his slipping from his hand Even as he tried to deny them As if he were learning to let go The tide washed away his yesterday But allowed his today to remain Till tomorrow when it comes again If it does but with no guarantee As he knew as no one need explain And up from down he could see his own Reality forgotten alone A long time ago but now to know Remembered when all else slipped away Resurrecting like rock from the sand Tips of spires of castles from the deep Emerging in the sunset gleaming Each with a secret within its keep Sand castles as of stone still dreaming Dreams of childhood as before Dreams he would have to live to die for By the tide he came to understand As by the tide he came A castaway to his promised land Who by his learning to let go Felt strength return to his empty hand As the tide returned the echo Of his remembered name +Steven Curtis Lance Copyright MMX