LIFE Poem: Prodigal Son, by Brian Morrow

What is this madness in the soul?
Some old desire?
Some childhood dream.
Some buried pleasure, now long forgotten.

“Circumstance at odds with the Universe”, he said. And that was when it all began.

I tell you, sometimes, in the dark early mornings.
Before the light. When you are still warm and distant.

How we saw the world, in complete glory.
Collecting bottlecaps and catching fish with gum wrappers,
Looking skyward and seeing nothing.
We were happy then.
Dust fell in time, and we fell deeper too.

A child of the Universe, throwing matches in the wind.

Maybe this story is your own.

“What brought you here. So where are we now?”

I hear the dogs barking down the street.
I’m trading baseball cards in for forgiveness.
And I drive past the cemetery and still hold my breath.
Today the leaves fall, as they always do,
But someone has to pick them up. I’ll try tomorrow.

I can see the big, big world, when I look into the sky now.
It’s so busy, coming and going, both directions at once.
Somewhere I do know that child of the Universe is right.
We are all stardust hurdling towards … something.
Not his words though, mine.

So much matters more now.
Who knows where that shoebox full of bottlecaps is now
Or if those matches ever caught fire.