Destiny or Merciful Surrender

This piece is a tribute to a life lived that could no longer be saved… It has taken a few years to write something about someone I did not know until our fated intersection, that day at the river…A cathartic attempt to walk a mile in another’s shoes.  Sometimes our life changes so quickly we don’t really even comprehend how drastically a moment changes everything.

...a free form narrative prose poem by Harlon Rivers

Destiny or Merciful Surrender

Standing on the edge of a cliff,
Dark circled eyes span the distant horizon
Visible signs of an unsettled agony
trembles from within the skin's surface
Racing thoughts suffer in search
for glimmers of hope’s shining light,
All the while trying to gain focus
through the distracting fog and haze
of the inevitable price to be paid.
Thoughts of waiting here forever wane
as this haunting loneliness, won’t leave me alone

Struggling for balance,
Teetering on the brink of gracious surrender.
Notions of ever belonging faded
with the final concluding memories;
That fated moment when the last rumination
of physical human touch vanished
like a smoldering wick without wax
Smoke rings rising to dissipate,
disappearing into an untouchable dream...

Never really understanding
whether destiny carved the pathway
of the long and twisting road
leading to this defining crossroad
Or is it the preordained instant of forgiving surrender,
Doomed from the very beginning…
There were many rivers to cross
since the age of innocence
Jumping off cliffs with the faith to fly like a bird,
soaring into the great abyss.

 
Now frozen in an awkward moment
of confused trepidation
Daunting indecision overwhelms distorted perception
Essence… praying to the spirits of the universe
for the strength to understand the  nebulous lines
between destiny and merciful surrender.
Asking for the strength to accept
that which cannot be changed

At the cusp, high above
a waiting river too wide to cross…
Rolling out to sea…
on the way back to where I started
Physically too tired to reach
for another unknown distant shoreline.
Love is a river of tears
better crossed when you’re young…
“Its only water, I want it washing over me,
Washing over me”…