This old soul, you good man, will wait for you

The ripples of the world, the ebb and flow, the currents which sail good intentions and bad alike will one day reach our lands. They already do every day. Travel down rivers that are murky at best, carrying filth, carrying a burden from far away, unknown beds. They travel on the backs of magnificent waves that crash uncontrollably, break the rhythm, the predictable cycle of life, death, rebirth. These undeniable truths about the human spirit soar, on the backs of eagles roam all lands. They fall to the ground like snowflakes that may cover or destroy. The sharp edges of the water freezing in the smallest places imaginable. Inside a cell. Inside a heart, inside a den that keeps little ones from giving up their lives to the cold. These truths, the ones that teach us about ourselves, hold a mirror. They are constant. Through the passing of time remain unchanged. Thankless objects, mirrors, murmurs that grow into a screeching echo, they all order a halt. How we must all stop at once. Watch as the eagles fly above, unwrap the truths that we understand and stay alert for the ones that are about to hit us. 

The disappointment escalates and I can no longer find even a fragment of your soul worth fighting for. Sadness covers my days but only until I understand that it is I who must change. The process leaves my soul aged, old and used, almost too frail to pick up and start again. Too few have been the good men. Too many were the temptations and the soul could not withstand the battering. It withered away, turned into a monster unrecognisable to everyone around. Shrinking with each lie, with each word hanging heavy on its mind: to outdo itself, to raise itself straight, to never bow its head to those who are out to conquer and cripple it with stark notions of deceit. You have scarcely done good. Your spirit has seldom seen the light with which it was once filled. The world drenched in sin has overflowed and dirtied the spirit which you possess. You cannot shake the excess.  

It is difficult to gain coherency, to allow a sense of hopefulness to enter the days that are heavily guarded by grey clouds and clouts of doubt. Your father has been just as weak as you. He has bowed to the same lords you do. He mistook power for righteousness, grace for authority and boldness for love. He thought himself strong, but died with a broken spirit so in need of mending that the angels first carried him to their infirmary. Only then was he allowed to account for his deeds before the gods. All your fathers, all your mothers, their fathers and their mothers, all fathers and all mothers in history and time recorded have fallen short of the glory. We venture onto the same paths and can only hope that we have learnt from past mistakes. Their mistakes are ours to fix. Their spirit is ours to mend. Our lives are for those after us to judge. 

I plead with God, night after night, day after day, to show me a good man. I plead with the Maker to make me worthy of a good man. Humour me, please. But these good men are hard to come by and the soul grows older with each obstacle, with each trial set before it. Some temptations it cannot resist. The wait at times seems endless. In the wait both our souls are corrupted. You are pulled to become conceited and I am pushed to become latent then righteous. A sea of sadness covers me, I am inconsolable. Through tears that are not my own I feel my spirit rise. Rise to shed the mistakes of those before me. Rise to seek power in the efforts of humility. Rise to move towards the light that will paint it gold. I raise my hands, slowly. I turn my old soul, my still malleable body towards the warm. The voice inside like a restless hurricane waits for the moment it is finally let out. Then like a thundering echo that rings endlessly between two gaping cliffs: I will wait for you. These words send cracks to the abyss, return with a time lapse, all still and motionless when the cry from the bellows of the spirit is released again: I will wait, I will wait for you.