Grace

Cross-legged on a mountainside,

Back against a tree,

I feel others nearing

Whom I neither hear nor see.

Though my eyes are open,

I see no one at all.

I care not for comfort.

I wish to hear and heed the call.

I've waited to hear it,

Call to make eternal rhyme.

But long though I have waited,

I know it's not my time.

My mind is onward reaching,

Tendrils sent throughout

All the earth beneath me,

Those who live within and out.

I feel them drawing closer,

Angels, my wound, to heal.

Suffered on the battlefield,

I wished not to feel.

Deepest gash in my right side,

Much life fell therefrom.

While I try to right the scale,

And gain a happier sum.

Hands of heaven, gentle, touch

Where foe's death-blade fell,

In a try to make writer-warrior's

Soul-body well.

Too much life-water lost,

More angels kneel around.

Hands on head, arms, back, chest,

They make not one sound.

But I yet do feel it,

The love they pour inside

Brought from our Heavenly Father,

Love wide.  Eternity-wide.

I'm filled with such soul-balm

I've not felt.  Now I taste.

This, that I might share

This, God's own grace.

This prayer I offer you.

This, Grace shared anew.

Grace, and all God's angels
I beg God to help you, too.

Adam Scott Campbell

A Son Returns Home- An Inn Called See 2

Words, and battles, and kinship made strong...
Warrior and I have traveled long.
Many weeks have passed for I and for he
Since we sat at oak table, in the inn called See.

Now we have come to what once I named home.
I know not how to call it my own.
How will they receive me, after all that's been done?
What songs, in my absence, have they wept and sung?

The village seems peaceful, though silent tis not.
A lump in my throat rises and is caught.
Midst the clay huts is one I know best.
Twas where I was born.  I feel pain at my chest.

An old man sits outside the doorway.
Two small children, at his feet, play.
Behind the man's chair, an angel stands,
On the man's shoulders rests her tired hands.

My warrior friend, looking over can see
The troubled heart written on the face of me.
Knowing this task is one I must do,
He stands waiting, silent.  I murmur, "Thank you."

"...Thank you, my friend, for coming so far.
We have traveled by sunlight, by moon and by star.
Much have you suffered that I might understand
The path fashioned by a far wiser Hand."

"You've helped, by your presence, the heart inside
To walk through a poet's fear-hardened pride.
Further harm may be done here this day...
Will you come, to see if they'll let me stay?"

A slow smile spreads.  That pure heart I see
Shine through warrior's eyes gazing at me.
"Of course, good bard," speaks my kindly friend.
"We do this together." His hand he extends...

...Among clay huts, toward angel and old man
We now walk.  Old man struggles to stand.
Reaching she and he, I kneel at his feet.
"Please!  Rise not for one such as me!"

"I left your side!  I walked a strange path.
So much I've done to earn only wrath
From you who did all to save what was dead.
You should cast only curse down on my head!"

Tears fall down an old man's cheeks.
Angel walks around, kneels beside me,
Throws her arms round my shoulders.
A mother's embrace.  I feel younger.  I feel older.

"O, my dear, sweet son," says she, slow.
"Welcome home.  I've missed you so!"
Her words are strong, as ever they were.
An inner ocean storm begins to stir.

I want not to tremble and quake,
But one poet's frame starts to shake
I've locked them inside for years upon years-
Down my cheeks stream most painful tears.

Then on my shoulder, his hand comes to rest.
"Son," his voice breaks, "You make me so blessed.
I thought that I never again would see
Your face.  Your absence has sorely pained me."

"Now you return.  I beg you to stay.
You've traveled so far to get here today.
Your spirit is aching.  Be you healed.
Rise you.  You've no need to kneel."

I stand.  And so does he.
My father's aged arms wrap around me.
"Welcome home," he says very low.
"Now," he adds, turning. "I think here's one I know."

My friend, his slow smile spreading,
Takes proffered hand.  My father, not letting
Him off so easily, pulls him close.
Warriors need hugs, too, this poet knows.

A son returns home.  Wounds heal.  Tears dry.
My warrior friend makes home in a hut near mine.
My heart is healed of pain wrought back when.
I'm grateful, that I can love full again.

Adam Scott Campbell

Shattered. But. Listening.

Feel you somber?  Feel you sad?
Seem all your dreams so crushed?
Have you fallen?  Are you mocked
For every time you've blushed?
Has heart inside, too great to quit,
Slowly let out life,
While you are made to walk on,
Under threat of knife?
Has talent God once gave you
Seem ever to fall short,
Or are your pathways threatened
By enemy, sword, and fort?
Are you harmed by those
Who could shield you from scarring?
Do any drag you to their fight,
To share in hurtful warring?
Do you wish for more
Than what's been handed you?
Would you walk out from hell
If you only knew what to do?
If I knew the way for you,
And could point the way,
Would you leave your hell behind,
And walk out,
Today?
You, O child of God,
With sacred, dream-filled heart,
I know where there's help,
Where you may make a good start.
Message me, email me,
When such is what you need.
Call me planter, if you wish
For I, now, plant a seed.
I am no gloried angel,
For all that I've been through.
I'm truly soul-shattered,
But I'll listen,
Dearest Reader,
To you.

Adam Scott Campbell

Today

There's war.
There's kindness.
There's love.
There's hate.

Today I write of all of these,
Hoping that for you, Reader,
It is neither far too early,
Nor everlastingly too late.

I warred so much,
Naught else I knew.
I desired to be in pieces.
I wished that life were through.
I wished mortal, or immortal hand
To take me out of the game.
The mortal hand was mine,
The immortal had a Holy Name.

Immortal would not,
Mortal was not allowed.
I dared not take
What Heaven hallowed.
But desperation grew
Stronger day and night.
Till one desire I knew.
I wished an end to life.

Tis years now.
Mere weeks since I've found
I wish for life,
Here, on mortal ground.
We smile, you and I.
We laugh and say we're fine.
How oft, on lies and poetry,
We sit, and quaff our wine.

Did heartbroken friend,
Torn to shreds inside,
Tell you she was "good,"
When soon you learned she lied?
Did some battered stranger
Fall across your path?
Were you inclined to kindness,
Or to vengeful wrath?

I look around me.
You.  Me.  They.
I stay.  I help.  I try.
Today.

Adam Campbell

Hands That Heal

Hands that heal.  Hands that touch.
Hands that trade wings for my crutch.
Hands that I once fled for fear.
Hands that, now, I want more near.

Hands that belonged to a foe.
Hands that changed.  Hands that know
Whence grows my pain.  Hands that feel
Each pained tendon.  Pain so real.

Hands touching my lower back.
Could there be a kinder attack?
Kindness appearing as pained balm.
I start to tense.  Says she, "Be calm."

Words of power.  Words so few
Reteach me, time number two,
That, herein, I have naught to dread.
Her hand touches back of my head.

Hand-memory comes pouring in.
Brain surgery. Head trauma, within.
Hands that stole tumors in red.
How much of red fled my head?

Hands so cruel.  Hands so kind.
Hands that since have crossed my mind.
Hands never staying for good.
I knew not whether they should.

Hands of angels, grasping my frame,
When I'd all but lost my name,
When I'd forgot the feel of balm.
Says she, the second time, "Be calm."

Words of caring, rife with love,
Remind me of love above.
Reminiscing as I do,
I remember loving you.

Hands of love still touch my head,
I lay quiet in hospital bed.
While an angel whispers sweet,
"Until next time, my love, we meet."

Slowly and yet quickly too,
She is gone, as once were you.
I lay here in sacred bed,
Where heaven's hands have soothed my head.

Hands and head and body through,
Never feel completely new.
Not pain nor soothing I'd undo
If I were given option to.

Adam Scott Campbell

Fight

There's darkness and evil and total war
Locked by a key and laid up in store,
But goodness, and light, and peace kept within...
The battle that's waged... I yet can still win.

Hope, and Faith, and sweet Charity,
Still holding on in the depths of me,
Enable me now, as ever before,
To never think the words, I quit!  No more!

I want the evil!  So badly, I do.
It fills me, overflowing anew.
But if both joy and pleasure were one,
Would not good and evil, as such, be undone?

So long has my mind been altered and changed,
That I do not know a soul-empty pain.
Each has purpose, and so joy and pleasure.
Pain and joy grow in equal measure.

I can imagine, midst great pain, a glimpse
Of angels' arms round me, while I stumble and wince.
Is my thought dead?  Has my mind gone?
Might such defending thought be wrong?

I don't know. I know I want more.
Sand, salty waves on a cool blissful shore.
Warm, slender arms reaching, holding me tight.
A special someone helping me cease the fight.

I hope for this end, that someday twill be.
Meanwhile, the battle rages inside of me.
May God ever grant a poet Mercy,
And Hope, and Faith, and sweet Charity.

Adam Scott Campbell

Gold To Threatened

The blackened sheet, the near-destroyed

Dream with which I've ever toyed...

Shall the millions waiting

Be enthralled, or be annoyed?

Out of my fire, barely saved, 

Comes this priceless, hated page.

Was my Dream well-aimed, or poor,

When it, to man, I gave?

In my Core, where I've returned,

Revisiting what I've learned,

Upon this hearth I gently place

Written lessons I've discerned.

Pained learnings of a mind quite sore

Remind me what I did it for-

This life of stunning, priceless thorn-

Here in my invincible Core.

Thousands of pages, still waiting,

A Dream that soothes the hating...

What can a dream battler do

To keep dream, and hate, from mating?

Upon the hearth, my hand, all red

From life-water it has bled.

No apologies for the words

That, from my heart, I said.

Knowing not the whole, entire

Cost that might come from my ire,

I have saved the cover, too,

From my homemade fire.

I know nothing.  I know not

Twixt page's type, what lives are caught.

Knowing, though, I mustn't quit.

I do that which I ought.

I take threatened pages, as one,

Off the hearth.  They are not done.

I also take my crystal pen, of

Golden ink, I once won.

Millions of words written, for

Each soul having much in store.

Millions written, I must write

All that I have come here for.

Gold-filled crystal, here in my Core,

Gold to threatened,  I write one more.
Tis you, O Reader, I write it for.

Adam Scott Campbell