A Journeyman

July 31, 1999 - August 2, 1999

This is for a journeyman,

The working man life scheduled to ban.

A casualty among the grains of sand

To sift through a kind of reprimand.

Sixteen years in his settled town -

Till lack of employment would fumble down.

No occupation to feed his tax.

A simple man among the cutbacks.

Often when a mind reaches this sort of the uncharted,

It burrows down the soul so brokenhearted.

So in defense, he boomed his voice.

To rebuild his spirit became his choice.

Though his heart nearly made the ultimate turnabout,

He knew the need to amend all doubt.

"Goodbye, sweet family," came after a night's rest.

"I'm a forager, now, with a bit of earth to best."

This test became a challenge he couldn't waver.

The purpose was to suit his Savior.

From Georgia, he began his ship-less sail.

To Maine would complete the Appalachian Trail.

Aside from a six-day familial halt, he treaded lone

While his wife and children clocked the time he was gone.

They didn't shun each other while he made his search.

Aside from family, there were friends and the church.

To renew but better his wake on the importance of belief,

He sought to seize his ache to perambulate for relief.

Faith can be crushing when hope's star is too ill to cruise.

Maybe those blues and bad luck are in cahoots to bruise.

As flats he smashed blend roughly with steeps,

Mason pined for Dixon, legs wished steps were leaps.

Deeper into the quest snapped his travelling rod.

But he framed no arguments or questioned "Where's my God?"

To assuage his put-upon place and such a seeming curse,

He regaled a journal and himself with poems and rhyming verse.

Yes, amazement can be settled quirks, pending of the absurd,

But like others he met along the trail, he never forgot the Word.

Not Cletus, Jimbo, T-Boy, Billy Bob, Buck, Hoss, or Jeb.

His brothers-on-foot handled him as ole' Johnny Reb.

Every twenty miles when dawn revived on the throes of his caper,

Admiration steered away his grief to the acceptance of gorgeous nature.

Moreover, he embraced what his Creator gave without peering peers.

Though this lonesome event was a revelation, he didn't share his tears.

His waist was a little shortened; his appetite wasn't a strain,

Even sore feet between states couldn't dare him to claim any bane.

More troubles to meet when his trek twisted its lengthy angle.

He slipped onto an old oak; there he would dangle.

Safely clenched to his faith and dispatched fully on the ground,

He held tightly to the credence that his Heavenly Father came round.

Amazingly, his 90-day foot careened him into reality.

His knowledge to challenge personal upsets stalled a lame mentality.

His spirit bored a walk on a fated course other souls combed

to embrace his family and reverse a lost, for he gloried while he roamed.

© 1999 Jarrod C. Lacy