Because we raced together,
In climes both bright and gray,
Often finding pleasure,
Embracing pain that way,

We never thought it curious,
As the distance fell hard afoot,
Why words were so superfluous,
In telling a truth that put,

Meaning to that effort,
Or cause to announce as such,
The act was all we needed, any
More would’ve been too much.

For it was all there in the motion,
Simple, stripped, and bare.
“Do this,” we thought, in tandem,
“And the rest we could forswear.”

For the mantra of our breathing,
The rhythm within our pace,
Gave lyric enough in cadence,
To ruddy out our face.

‘twas the simplicity of our purpose,
The goal almost epicene,
To surmount the lower regions,
In regression toward the mean.

No longer men and women,
Neither sinners nor of saints,
We’d entered through the looking glass,
Beyond our form’s constraints.

Where exertion in kind for distance,
Brought horizons to our eyes,
Like the couple in the garden,
‘fore the serpent sold his lies.

When all was still before us,
And the path so clear and clean,
That simple hope and virtue,
Could each, and both, be seen.

And yearning held its promise,
That as youth we still regard,
As in the offing, possible
That with age we tend discard.

So forward we rushed together,
Elliciting in half-uttered sighs,
The concord in our choices,
The redemption of our lies.

Hoping to render in effort,
Some measure that lent control,
As if ancient act or runic curse,
Could offset the relentless toll,

Of that staggering destination,
That time which we all decry,
Whitman’s “wholesome relief, repose, content”,
The tender by and by.

When all would come to rest at last,
Mortal coil free,
When the heavens welcome us home again,
Stardust, you and me.

Thus no counterfeit joy deceived us,
We knew there were dues to pay,
Yet with value in that recompense,
We settled our debt each day.

Often with an interest earned,
When our breathing so aligned,
Heartbeats overlapping,
Yours, and ours, and mine.

These journeys are rarely filled,
My friend, o’er land or on the road,
With routes without encumbrances,
That giants once bestrode.

Where vision is often clouded,
As blood is shunted through,
To solipsistic purposes,
Which blind or obscure what’s true.

But there’s no shame in thus exposing,
The limits we each revealed,
There were larger forces working,
That helped let down our shields.

And reward and consolation,
Though appearing, at times, at odds,
Emerged in the final counting,
Just whimsies of the gods.

There are other means of exploring,
Of discovering the ‘mortally intolerable truth’,
That while age may bear some wisdom,
Our capacity’s in our youth.

 Thus, what I know is that along that border,
Where time and miles convened,
We’d discovered a leveling universe,
That allowed us both to glean,

That because we raced together,
In climes both bright and gray,
We’d cut a path along which we’d laughed,
As we held the ole reaper at bay.

End