Totaled by Accident

The one key woman went keyless
By jolt
Not setback

A friend who knows me only by common high school said,
I can't keep up with you. I hope you enjoyed your vacation.

I had to think
Where did I go?

I was gone ten weeks traveling
And didn't once think of it as vacation
I was building foundation
Setting mortar of me
Roaming for five years
Working National Parks
Learning new skills
Imprinting faces

My Honda was my house key
My faithful companion
I have slept in it
Cried in it
Mourned in it

It was the last family vestige
The only car Steve and I bought new for our family of four
Divided in the divorce
I got the car
No one got the family

A car accident totaled the Honda
My one key gone
My distraction, my fault
I am unscathed
No one else hit
Except the semi-truck
And the Honda was his tease
A man who examined it said,
The Honda did what it was supposed to do; it saved your life.

It did
I was
Saved
But not the ugly way
In church

As is more fitting,
On a mountain road

No spiritual spiral of depression
For I was shot up forcefully new

The Honda released to its history
I acquire a new key
In fact
Two new keys
A car
And a front door

I am settling down
For a while anyway

New adventures await
A home of my own
In one place

For I learn and relearn
That home is
In the heart
In who we know
In the community we build
In the love we have shared

It matters not whether
We know someone for twenty minutes or twenty years
It is how we are reshaped by ordinary human beings

Not to say beginning again is easy
But the challenge, the new, the hope, the twirling of spirit
Keeps the spirit free and fluid

And always acquiring

Acquiring...