The Middle Ages

Looking back is not the same as looking forward

you can’t see what it is you’re heading toward

all that’s visible is what’s left behind

the dreams distilled and the dreams discarded

what made you leap or left you empty hearted

in the moment and in the fullness of time

Now you see what it is that you would have changed if only you’d known

where you’d be and to be here is very strange waking up alone

in the middle ages

All along you paid close attention

to the answers when a voice asked the question

how’d you get here, where do you belong

17 makes us brave and so full of nerve

35 makes us pause but we’re undeterred

never say die and so we push on

And some come to a place of reckoning try to fix what they find

I arrived with the questions still beckoning in the back of my mind

to the middle ages

Now you bitch about your job what’s wrong with folks today

the price of gas and milk and the guy who begs for change

he’s camped out at the light you hide behind your shades

and will the green to flash to speed your getaway

you’re racing to keep up or just to be on time

that’s what you tell yourself when the emptiness inside

threatens to break out clouding up your eyes you just have to pull over

We used to dread lives rendered ordinary

we always said we’d own a grander story

but the only kind worth telling somehow

is the one about a jolt that makes you listen

that jagged lightning bolt of recognition

that love and kindness are all that matter now

And way back in the back of your mind you heard something getting through

like some beautiful passage without words welcoming you

to the middle ages