This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there's a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life.
C. S. Lewis
The wind whips through the trees and leaves.
Imagine the laughter: The Great Joke, the living tin bucket.
The mechanics are simple and failing.
Gunked blood moves like sludge, forcing the organs to barely pump.
Metallic bones are rusted, decayed from disuse.
Painted skin sits thinly over-stretched, peeling at the slightest touch.
Lungs reach for air, but all they breathe out is thick smoke.
There's pain to simply keep striving.
How or why do I keep going?
Wind rustles leaves passed this tin form.
Surely more than laughter.
Words, just above than just the wind:
"You can be healed—
there is a cure!
Run towards the light!"
Curious, hopeful.
Follow, discover?
Surely, that must be for me.
Surely, I should follow.
Movement is slow-going at first.
The blood still churns slowly and bones remain brittle,
Skin stretches a bit farther, peeling faster—
This is too much; I'd rather just stay.
"Just move—
just turn!
To stay is to burn!"
My tin shifts around, but pieces of me break at the unnatural movement.
Facing the other way, there it is—the bright sliver light.
Skin cracks, joints creak, and what passes for a heart aches.
The sun sizzles skin. It hurts.
I don't want to try anymore.
"Come on—
keep going—
you have to keep moving!"
Forced on, my knees creek—but they bend.
Skin stretches—but they no longer flake.
Lungs constrict—but they finally relax.
Moving forward, blood pumps faster.
The sun warms rather than burns my overwrought surface.
"Come on—look—
see what's right there!"
My eyes are raw, yet they can see more:
The blurry outlines strengthen into images.
There are more than just trees in these woods—
Many are simply other Tins, but some are Something Else.
Hundreds are out there, if not more.
I thought I was alone.
"You see it—
Keep looking—
Yes—look, look!"
The Tin's are stuck facing the wrong direction.
Others slowly turn around, slowly shed into Something Else.
Still others are definitely Something Else—not broken or frozen, but alive!
Those Something Else's are moving quickly toward that blinding light.
Overwhelming, impossible.
Fall back, falter.
Surely, the Tins are where I belong.
Surely, I should return, go back.
One Something Else reaches out a hand—I take it.
"Move forward—
toward the light—
just a bit further—
together now—"
Painlessly, it happens.
My metal heart cracks—
the rusted bones crumble—
My statuesque tin skin sheds
along with my brittle body
and my slow blood.
I move faster than before.
And I can see better than ever.
I am Something Else.
I am Something New.
As I move freely now, I call and reach out to the Tin's, letting my words be carried on the wind:
"You can be healed—
there is a cure!
Run towards the light!"
YOU ARE READING
The Walk
PoetryThe Walk attempts to look at different aspects of my very present experience (and my relationship to God) through the lens of poetry. So far there are 4 parts: "Hearsay," "Words on the Wind," "Winter Jam 2016," and "For the Dying Man." Each one is c...
