The Road

As I walk down the road on this cool Autumn day, I feel like I 

shouldn't be walking alone. And yet there's only one person who 

can take this empty place beside me. But times, like the leaves of 

the season, turning colors and fluttering as tho predestined to the 

ground, do change.

It's a worn path I walk; I know every bump and curve; and it 

can distinguish my soft tread from any of the millions of others 

whose souls have touched this concrete. I do not walk alone.

And the missing person, the one who should be here, never 

leaves my side. She is always with me. If I ever had a hurt or a 

fear in my life, she is my comfort. If I ever needed someone to 

confide in, she is around. I am tragically lost without her, and yet 

I'm never without her. We walk in each other's footsteps, crisscross 

each other's paths, and step synchronized to the same beat of life.  

Now, each footstep I take carries a memory of times past.

But we're still walking the road together. The birds reassure 

me of it. She talks to me thru the crackling of the dry, brown leaves 

under my feet. And she speaks to me thru the whispering wind.

Has it all been said before? by other romantics and poets?  

But it can be said a million times and still be true, can't it?  If it 

comes from the heart? It has so devastated and so moved me that 

I must express. Love is not easily forgotten; friendship not easily 

abandoned; wounds not easily healed. So as I walk down the road 

on this cool Autumn day, she is on my mind. She is here, yet gone 

all the same. My mind races back to the times we once had.  This is 

how I keep her with me. And today, we are as one.

(Nov. 1983)