The Old Explorer

I have sat just once

at the deathside bed of a old explorer

While Life yet lingered within him,

After I had chased away

the swaddling nurses

and their comfort pans

Who sought only to ease his pain

with their bandaged ministrations.

I sat and held his hand, while he

simply held on

Then I told him of my day

amid the rising path and trees

Where the sun would not reach until mid-day

And his stories of which it reminded me

And on this, he rose from the weary frame,

with more life than we knew he still possessed

To admonish me, lovingly: "That? Hell, that was nothing."

And there he cracked open yet another dusty jar

of the world unknown to me,

and the stories it had taught him

Of the path yet steeper, where no trees grew,

and weather so hard the sun would not be seen

until springtime.

Of how he stood there with his companions

beaten, but victorious

for simply having made it back

"Now - *that* was spectacular. You should see it some day."

And I promised I would

some day.

...

When I am broken,

And you find me at bedside

with nothing left to cling to

Except my memories

Remember this man, and share with me your day

on the windswept heights

That we may remember it together

and that I

when I go

May go with you