One’s Purpose

Existence waits, like a still pond under moonlight,

reflecting nothing until the wind dares speak.

Purpose is not born, but bathed as a newborn boy

in the kitchen sink where steam curls

like prayers from a mother’s hands,

her fingers the first compass of guidance,

her breath the first hymn of worth.

The boy learns slowly and through the pinned silence of an

Eagle Scout award discovers tenacity is born of the young,

Courage is tested with the tremble of a first date’s hand,

the firefly flicker of a kiss that lingers

like dew on the hushed lips of dawn.

Determination appears slowly like a shadow that grows with the sun,

not chasing, but stretching, a murmur in consciousness that says, “You are becoming.”

An anticipation of freedom arrives in the form of a car with rust like freckles on its hood with Marine boot camp drills that carve discipline into the bones like ancient runes.

Mistakes bloom like wildflowers in the cracks of his path,

each petal a lesson, each thorn a teacher

with no name save that of  truth.

Marriage, generosity, the soft ache of giving without ledger,

where purpose dances in the quiet rooms as forgiveness is folded

into shared duties presenting another form of love

in a language spoken between the lines of silence.

Children become sounds of complexity’s progress.

Ups often become downs written as regrets

in the hovering pen of apology,

an invisible language that appears later on the remembrance of paper.

Now, in the final year of his Octogenarian period, he grows still, like a tree that no longer reaches, but listens.

Purpose becomes fully known,

its thunder and lightning settling in reflection,

a mirror of downpours of memory’s ink finding purchase.

Reflective poems continue to emerge

like feathers falling from the long flight,

each word a breath he forgot to take when he was younger.

He steps into his nonagenarian era with gratitude braided into his spine,

adjusting to the ever-shifting gravity of staying alive.

2026 waits like a kaleidoscopic sunrise that knows it will rise again. Purpose is no longer a pursuit. It is an authentic presence,

a candle that burns not to see,

but to be a flame for others.