Lost Soul Found

Lights burning darkly day or night always
Three beds in the house and I sleep in none
Mattress-stuffed memories sterile of joy
Shades of the dead toss and turn in each one
I can no more nor need tell nights from days
An infantile and eternal lost boy
Lies quiet on the front room couch unknown
The shade the least alive here is my own

I went to a psychiatrist and he
Said I must move out immediately
A quarter-century ago so I
Took his advice but have come back to die
At last if least since this is what we do
All generations give or take a few
Who died elsewhere then came home here like me
For falling leaves home is the place to be

The circle once unfinished joins complete
The wheel once broken turning is made whole
May choice absolve by triumph my defeat
May God have mercy on my misfit soul
But it is mine to give to take to keep
Death in the last of life's surprises dies
As now I lay me down to wake to sleep
A lost soul found and freed arises flies

+Steven Curtis Lance



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