The View from Halfway Up

 --Dedicated to my friend Jennifer Tiedemann 

Sterile chimes and blinks entwine

As half is filled my cup,

The lens of all my yesterdays

The view from halfway up.

Cities shrink and clouds depart

The distance ever growing,

The bloom of every almost made,

A life unlived, unknowing…

By gaining speed and losing ground

And falling ever higher,

I’m closer now to heaven's brow

Than God could take me prior…

Like heavy blues and in painted skies

The new year has me stuck,

I wish I’d undo bad goodbyes

Were I not now halfway up…

But the door is shut, the arrow shot,

Their phones in airplane mode,

Nothing left to lose but time,

The seeds of what we’ve sowed.

But tomorrow brings its blessing,

The twelve of midnight struck,

And it’s hard to sit here stressing

With my view from halfway up.

I wish that all of you could see

The view from halfway up.