on beardless chins

 Riding through the night and rain
on old Route 66, racing a freight train;
to a grade crossing five miles down the road.

On the stereo, a deep voice growls
about boxcars moving south, like words
out of my mouth and a blended thread of thought.

This stormy night  brings me home with a smile
my favorite team is losin' again, but the wipers
match the rhythm of my mood, i'm so good
in the cozy piece of the bubble in which I live

[Outside, Man has sown soul foul seeds and imagines that
the world bleeds, but no, it is just he- the heedless and the innocents nearby]

The world of men is changin' so, new wars find old grief
snatchin' young lives the Thief now risen from the East.
And once again, I see the Old burying  the young
flag-draped boxes frame final kisses on beardless chins.

It is an allegory of the human condition:
the permissions given to evil; to take our love
and leave the shell to ground. On the war-worn path,
a strike for righteousness:  for life's sake, young life,
and that yet to be in swelled bellies and magical dreams

I'm in the bubble amid a world swirled by change
in the bubble: a  space that has not yet felt
the flood-freeze-and-burn legacy of reckless man

So, I drive and complete the tedious circle of this day
so fortunate in the thousands of ways
we daily see and rarely say- even to self

My bubble is a world still filled with people I love
and with a heart that finally has learned
the strength that comes by gratitude, and the power to see
the overwhelming beauty that life can bring