The Journey - Song of the Road At Sixty-Six, Poem by WJ Ray

Song of the Road At Sixty-Six

The Map of the One Life

Flying east to west
Above the clouds and vapor
Above the atmospheres
So fleetingly thin
I alone
Buoyed at the circle's weightless edge
Just flying

No sensation or sound
But only
The sphere illuminated
Massively round
Indistinct configurations below--
Are these clouds--or continents--
The pale expanses away off
In the blinding blue lightness?
I don't know what they are
Or why I am flying

So went my spirit journey
As a child
Traversing the margin of darkness
Below, a small body lay destroyed inert
Drying blood at the throat and chest
Crusted in the suffocating mid-day shade
Forgotten there

Now I know the power
Suffusing the airy sunlight
And the unending globe
Was the One Life
Keeping me
To return its breath

Elsewhere one day
Another life--
Many--
None of them mine
Only that below
On unspeaking Earth
Increased perhaps
By this so slight
Knowing

WJ Ray

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