My dearest friend,
I just heard the word
That your path has once again
Intersected my own,
And I find myself now
Gasping for breath,
With attention drawn
To wounds yet left unhealed.
We are once again
A continent apart,
Amidst the endless fields of towering corn,
The midlands of the Home of the Brave,
To the southernmost reaches of this greatest land,
The warmth of Galveston Bay.
And my own infirmity, now,
Imprisons me here,
But were it not so, my friend,
I would hope that you know
That I would already be by your side.
Sadly, this is a road
That you must walk alone,
For no one knows the nature of your bond,
And while we have,
Nearly every one, experienced loss of our own,
This is a furrow of the richest soil
That you must turn all alone.
I imagine today
That your father is with mine
In a galaxy so far from our own sun,
For so rich are my feelings for you,
Brother of mine,
That they cannot help but honor our love.
We will continue to wander this beautiful land of ours,
Like Don Juan, trying to make sense of it all,
Putting purpose, if we can,
Into every lost step,
Looking daily for a hand we might lend,
Knowing on a level that we cannot understand,
That the best of what we have to offer,
Are the lessons learned from our fathers,
On this planet we have been entrusted to tend.