No Matter (For Tom Y Joad :)

[The Straight Story]

(saw you posted some poems tonight, I saw we toss out some more eh)

No Matter

Tis no matter where I roam
Nor how I go
Everywhere I have gone
I look behind and see
Tracks left behind
Little footprints
Left by me

Oh how I wonder
Where they will lead
Would that I could trace them
Sometimes erase them
The paths I have crossed
Through the mud
Through desert dust
Like shadows of time
Follow me
My little footprints
Left behind by me

Tis no matter
I would like to believe
These tiny footprints
Left on earth by me
I look down on one
This one
I sit next to that tiny print
Filled with rain
Dust
And Mud

Tis no matter
Until I see
Reflections of you
Shimmering back at me
A parent’s smile
A child laughing
Lover dancing
An old man comforted
I watch these events
As rain drips down
Covering tears

Tis no matter
Where these feet may land
It matters only
Where they have been
Impressions left
Upon the sands of time
My tiny footprints
Will still shimmer
When I am gone

Tis no matter
That I shall turn to dust
Like a ghost they wander this earth
These tiny footprints of mine
I look ahead
To that mountain
Where I shall rest
And wonder as I walk now
Will I look back
At these footprints of mine
And smile
Know in my heart
That they followed a good man

Tis no matter
Where I shall go
Or when
Someday my journey of life
Will suddenly end
It only matters
That I can look back
And smile
At my footprints left
Where I was
And who I have been

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Honored.... K&R

Done well.

[The Straight Story]

2. I think a poetry night here in GD might do us all some good :)

Keep em coming, love em!

[TomInTib]

3. Filled with rain, Dust, and Mud

That is one of the most desciptive lines that I have ever read...

And the whole thing was just beautiful.

did you see this, TSS?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2122904&mesg_id=2122904

[The Straight Story]

4. Sweet poem!

Thanks for linking me to it. Was just on a thread talking about driving across america too :)

[KAZ]

5. Well, this is the 3rd poem I've read in the last 5 years,

and all 3 of them tonight. "where I was, and who've I been" means everything to me lately. Must be getting old.

Great work Straight. And since TYJ's work seems to elicit all of these tributes, well, I think I need to pay a bit more attention. Been missing a lot on DU.

(TYJ, your's was the 2nd, but you're gettin enough props as it is). :)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. LOL! More than I deserve.

:toast:

[The Straight Story]

7. I wrote the poem at a turning point in my life

I had moved out to the california desert after living in ohio. I missed my little boys back here, had broken up with the woman I had moved out there to be with (then found out she was pregnant), and found the woman of my dreams.

It was all a swirl of things to me, and all at once. At times I just wanted to take a night stroll through the desert and think. In that period of time I wrote some twenty poems. Some were story poems though for the wife, not all were reflective :)

Thanks for the kind words, maybe I will post a few more..