Looking Back

Looking back on many years
of hopes and fears, of smiles and tears,
gazing over my life's broad valley
I see clefts cut steep, soft silt laid deep
the record of life's experience.

Drill down on the couch,
pull cylinders of memory like teeth
into the light of day;
then measure, weigh and compose
clinical reports of my past lives.

Here I sprouted beneath a hot sun,
a stranger in my homeland,
imposing order and hated for it.
Climate change brought seasons
brown to green, people black to white,
from south to north and breathless discoveries
tucked tight in corners of ancient wisdom.

Then adventures, small triumphs, happy times
won against the flow of flood;
defeats, hardships, uncertain climes
laid shallow and deep in my life's mud;
perhaps some signs of red, red blood.

Looking back, looking back,
I rest with risky faith, hardy hope,
upon the bedrock which holds up all
steady against a final fall.