by gRj
For the man who carried home on his back,
and hummed his way through the dark—
You were a wildfire in a body
that wouldn’t burn slow—
lungs like paper lanterns,
still glowing where the wind tore holes.
The woods knew you first:
your tent a cathedral of rain,
your bicycle a steel-winged bird
that never left the ground.
(How many winters did you pedal,
wheels spinning hymns between your ribs,
chain rusted with the weight
of all the roads you couldn’t stay on?)
Then—miracles in small type:
four walls, a key, a car
that started when you turned it.
You rolled the windows down
just to feel the world move with you,
not past.
Now the emphysema comes
like a thief you’ve learned to name.
You laugh around the oxygen hose,
pluck your guitar till your fingers stiffen,
sing till the notes fray
into something too honest
to call music.
Oh, George,
they’ll never understand
how a man who’s been untethered
so long can strum the light
clean through the cracks—
your voice a stubborn knot
holding the sky to the tree line,
holding the road to its promise:
Forward. Always forward.