Red Light Revelation by rje

A tear fell under my tire
at one red light.
A book in my hand from some
garage sale on Laughton and 64th.

Of a heart and a song and a mystery
toiled by an author, a story written
from some romantic gesture
detailed by some truth only
fairies have memorized late in the night.

In a dream by some might
words and time, unrelenting.
Until the teller of tales awoke
just in time to retell the story.

In ink oft is communicated
but time is even more permanent
to have seen the likes of utensils
born of chalk, plant or blood.
And that created by words
or battle, or laughter
and that divined by an eternal.

God spoke at some moment
Even a raconteur can barely tell when,
except that was the beginning.

All things, even we, begin dark and void
Authors of stories we have to live
first, but like the book in my hand,
he only wrote but never knew

What life would be like
with someone else's story?
Could we handle it?
Justice Served?
What would we do with another life?
Another story?
Stories are piano hands building a house.

Life...like a road with traffic lights
And many rules for one side of the road
and the other. An ostentatious series
of stops and starts and swerves
and forks and freeways...
can feel solidly up-hill
but is truly a simple road.

What was life like
before I learned to pretend?
That is when the mind was truly
free to believe what could be?

But one can't take a bath
in an empty bathtub.
Stories must be told...a tub
In what some of us were born
and others of us drowned.

I'm a romantic surpassed by
reality on my first word
spoken by a person I knew not.
Romantics are a wonderful lot.

A romantic's successful woo
in any occasion an honest trick
to step into tales and yarn long enough
to make them laugh
without destroying
what really is about you
or them.

Did we surprise God
by this little evolutionary twist?
Like trying to explain a thing,
anything to your loved
from your dimension into theirs
and failing miserably.

I think not,
for human knowledge is only a blip
in the scope of the entire universe.
A story not my own and impossible to tell
incapable to stand before God
but instead to fall prostrate.

The world contains no edges
beyond round, and love is like that...
A soapy clean bubble of universe between
demons and strangers.

The place where memories
do not fade, even as we do.
It's the place where truth is absolute
even when we sometimes hardly know ourselves.

It's the place of genuine laughter
Even when demons and strangers
languish in hypocrisy,
lies and stories dreamt by the devil
on our opposite shoulder.

It's the place where stories inside
match what is on the cover...that
is rarely seen for the story itself,
because we leave so much to appearance.

The world really has no edges
beyond round,
and love is like that.
That living on one side of eternal life.

Never bound by demons and strangers
and assuredly whetted by the voice and finger
of God.
And love and life are like that...
stories by whom our lives are told
and our hearts honed.

The clock tick-tocks in rhythm
meant to swallow everything but eternity,
cannot swallow miles and trials
and loves endured by them.
Pictures worth a thousand words
are blessed because some of them are ours.

A tear fell underneath my tire
at some red light.
A book in my hand from some
garage sale on Laughton and 64th.

The book inscribed
by a someone who loved
Another, "Dear Grace..."
it said.

A book witnessed lives
other than its own
and it's a private matter.
I should not want to know
except for a momentary eavesdrop.

Yes I am the owner of
some glib manuscript
on sale for 10 cents
at a local rummage.

Which also ruled
and tamed lives.
Lives and fingerprints
that dot its cover.

And who's personality
dog eared every fifty pages or so,
and a careless rip
and an accidental slosh of coffee.

Because maybe it was too hot
or the story cold and scary,
rippled with fear;
or steeped in
sadness or mystery or love...
an uncommitted jest
from a spot of coffee.

Or maybe the sun had long
ago tagged the moon
at the tip of the earth
after a long wrestling match with the day.

Tired and weary but unable
to quit or admit the day had slept.
The dog-ear two-hundred-twenty
pages after fifty-two tell me

A battle of wit and time
were played within.
Gregarious but untenable
the fight grasped and seized...
lingered between law and freedom.

I have no idea why,
and this garage sale memento
won't tell me its secrets.
And that seems to me
to be alright.

Somehow I hit this red light
at the wrong moment.
But someone else
might have needed a moment...
and another there for only a moment.

"Dear Grace" I read.

I guess it's true and I don't know
what's true or not.
I suppose I'll wait for the voice of God.

Because all I have is a book
purchased at a garage sale
on Laughton and 64th.

I hate red lights... don't you?