All My Ships Adrift

The Picnic Table on Top of the World

There is a picnic table on top of the world,

Above the Afton gap on a Virginia height

And from it you can peer down at green valleys low

Or at clouds freckled out on the fleet winds that blow.

A lonely spot where lives are whispered into space,

For carved upon the rotted wood a heart is traced

"I'm lookin' 4 ❤..." (it says in this careless place),

These weathered planks show such scars to a stranger's face.

More to be read, for the lines and grooved portents speak;

Off to one side, "I just found Jesus!", smiley face

Then quickly near it black marks from a different place

(I will guess even here that Ancient Fiend hates peace)

See over here someone lost true love and laments,

In the marge below somebody scrawls their two cents,

These gyres of hope and thought spiral out unfurled

On a doomed picnic table on top of the world.

Perhaps we need some lasting place to bear our pains,

This table though will one day perish from the earth

But still we shall be having our sins and our loss,

If we make picnic tables our one only cross.

There sets a picnic table on top of the world

Above the Afton gap on a Virginia height.

And from it you can see views most grand and most frank,

Of the world written there on the side of a plank.