An old melody plays and I am drawn into the mouth of an old memory

I am in a small dark tent, sleeping in my uniform in the ancient deserts of Jordan

This song played in my ears and I wrote to you on pages of my heart

You were more than a world away.  You were lost and I was gone.

 

Sarah was a little baby and your heart was broken and scared

I tried to be strong for all of us.  I tried to push through like my grandfather would have

I wish what we did had not destroyed us.  There was a great man in you…

If you had only known… Sorry if I didn’t tell you

 

The song goes on and the memory swallows me whole; All these years later. 

I can look for meaning, but only God and Jesus know.

We reached for each other, even years after our broken covenant

But we reached wrong

… or different and missed it

 

Still this melody takes me back to a place of struggle and of hope

I can smell the mildew of the canvas around me

I can hear the wild winds warning me outside as they rocked and pushed the tent

And I can feel the heavy tears for you - when I still had courage. 

 

Some men cannot plant their legs, It would cut off their soul from the sky.

I know that.

But the ones on the ground still reach and need and depend on that man

There is a time to plant and a time to uproot what was planted...

 

I let you go and you let me let you go and you let you go

I don’t have any more wisdom now than I did crying on that cot in Jordan,

I discarded you and then i waited for you and loved you and I searched for you,

Then the time came to give up as lost.

 

The memory digests my thoughts. You are gone now and I still think about you and us and Us

I hope in the years after us you had moments of joy. 

I hope you found some closeness to Jesus

I hope that all the wonderful in you was not lost when you lost yourself

 

For the rest of my life I will still shed some heavy tears for you from time to time.

I will think of all of it and try in vain to find meaning in it

I will look at her and see you and me and Us

Even though it’s gone and you belong to the sky forever now.