Am I my Brother’s Keeper? – The Writings of Tom Grasso

Alone we stand embroiled in the past; strangling our present into unconsciousness and heaving the beauty of now into the fire of the way things used to be. So sad the sacrifice of pleasure for the feigned fantasy of what was as it surely keeps us from recognizing that what we wanted then is here with us now. I beg your forgiveness as I search for some opening in your heart to the love I have in mine.

Do you care enough to find my love warm and embracing as it is or have the walls we have created become so thick and mighty that we cannot see through them or dare to climb their lofty heights? Do you shrink from my touch out of such dislike for it or have I created that wall as well? Do you wish for me to be somewhere else? Do you wish for me to vanish down the trail beyond all that your eyes can see? You have created me as I was, I have created me as I am, and is it so impossible to ask that you see me as I see me not as you would have me be?

I have created you as I see you, to that I have no doubt. I love what I see, however, and despite the endless calls of my soul to part ways from you I simply cannot find it in my heart to do so. My soul wants what appears best for you, my heart wants what it knows is best for me. Who am I to argue with either? Should I bend to the wind of my own creation or stand firm on the rock that I know? I will stay sanely on my perch by your side, always wondering whether the dawn brings the day you will leave, the day you will say “I love you no more.”

At that moment I will shout to Heaven above “am I my brother’s keeper?” to which the Wind will whisper in the most patient repose “yes, you are”. So off I will let you fly to seek your love anew, and steadfastly I will stand in the Wind with my arms outstretched and my feet planted firmly on the Perch of What Is singing softly to my self “I will love you“.

For now I will cling to what I have, what I know, and pray the voices stop before they make more sense than what is all around me.