( Notes on this poem….Well, I am on the road traveling with my children for a week or so, and thought that this would be the perfect time to publish a set of three poems called Traveling People. This first poem was something that I actually experienced in an airport. I was sitting maybe 6 feet from a woman who was definitely going through some traumatic episode in her life. God, I felt so bad for her. I wanted to reach out to her. It seemed like she was leaving someone. They might have been in love??? He or she was calling her, and she just stared in the distance; unfocused, lost, alone, disaster swam all around her. Please leave a comment, and take care of yourself. Jonathan.)
DISSOCIATIVE BLUES
She has tears and red eyes
in the airport
sitting just steps
Away
Waiting to fly
Waiting to escape her broken world
Waiting
she bows her head
Down
staring into the palms
of her hands
Lines
of a life she thought was hers
Lost eyes run along the line until
it comes to an end
and there she lingers
Waiting
Just steps away
Her decision is rising up
In the solitude of her soul
She stands on the edge of some precipice–
A woman
who is so lonely
A woman
who is so lost
Out in the ocean where
there is no sight of land
A woman who is long suffering
waiting for a sign–
…Then
her phone rings…
______________________
Yet, she is distant
Eyes unfocused
So far away
Her phone is ringing
Just five steps away
In a distend land
She comes to an end
Her phone is ringing louder longer
Demanding to be answered
______________________
But it no longer matters
For the woman who had tears and red eyes
Waiting in an airport
So close to me and so far from me
Has flown away to some distant place
Her flight has been called…
I understand your point Tim. And you are right that it’s betetr to have some hope than none and not trying at all. I decided this when I was trying to figure out if it was wise to believe in God when I wasn’t sure. I had decided that it would be betetr for me to believe because then I would have something to motivate me not to give up on life and myself.I know the failure of trying to do it myself, Rex. I keep doing it over and over. I guess the upside of that is that it reminds me that I can’t do it myself and keeps me humble. Thank you both for your insight.