Sunday Scribblings:1/18/08:Fellow Travelers

In His Eyes

The greatest story
I ever read
was in the lines
on the face of an old man
on a flight to Wisconsin.

He told me of his life.

How, as a young man,
he left his parents to take part in
the drama of war. On
foriegn soil he was witness
to humanity's inhumanity.
He returned with blinders
to the differences in his fellow man.

His sweetheart awaited him.

and within her arms
the love story of marriage.
They courted, and had
the traditional wedding, taking to heart
the vows to stay as one.
Those vows produced the
tragi-comedy of children,
five boys who did
all the things he did:
caught frogs and crawdads,
climbed high into
the trees, got into
fights, and scared their mother. And he
wavered between wanting to hug them
and scold them
at the same time. The middle boy
was lost young, to
fever. The strength
of unspoken love from his wife
pulled him through,
as his did for hers.

Now, on this plane,
he was taking her to be
with the middle son.

I watched in silence
as the memories returned to him.
The horrors and the hurt.
The love and the laughter.
This all marched through his eyes.
So much those eyes had seen.
I wanted to reach to him,
to offer him my shoulder.


I stayed mute.
Storing his strength,
the glory of his story,
the beauty of his spirit,
the depth of his love.

It is the touchstone,
the well of experience,
upon which I still draw.