Returning

(the familiar story of the prodigal son in a different setting...)

Coming to the garden gate

Grasses green and weeds at bay

Left for tending by another-- 

Cared for by the one that stayed.

Long the journey from the haven

Out into the fields free blown. 
Longer yet the travel homeward,

For the destination’s known.

What’s familiar looks so foreign, 
But the eye’s the thing that’s changed. 
What was left is ever constant; 
What’s returned is not the same. 

Letting go came in an instant--

Turned and left with not one thought.
Gone so far and such a distance,

Seemed the path back home was lost. 

Turning back broke every vessel, 
Every bone crushed in the strain. 
Only spirit made the journey; 
Nothing else would yet remain. 

Drawing close to home and garden--

Spirit stumbles, buckles, falls. 
One last grasp toward the gateway,

Locked outside the haven walls. 

No hope left and none deserved 
For leaving what was giv’n by grace. 
Then a sound erases silence— 
Creaking of the op’ning gate.