Troubadours Of The Lost Highways

The Writer

The Writer may with words enchant us with the beauty of the sunrise coming up over the ocean turning the water into a collage of colors both bold and soft.  Within those words, you might hear the waves crashing the shore, and the gulls calling from the vibrant sky.  For that moment you feel as though you were there walking down the sandy beach barefoot and at peace within your spirit.

The writer’s words often awaken the memories from a time long past.  Memories that remind us of a place where we can still take the dark moist soil in our hand and know it’s good dirt, a place where you take joy in the harvest season, and most of all the feel of dirt roads on your bare feet.

Sometimes the writer doesn’t have to walk far to be amazed, sometimes inspiration is a stone’s throw away.  You only have to stop and listen to the quiet to hear the whispers of untold stories, forgotten memories, and friends from long ago.  It could be an old abandoned house, a guitar with rusty strings, or a long stretch of road that seems to reach forever beyond the horizon.

The writer may find the words that create the story we love so much that we can’t put the book down.  We stay up late working our way to that final chapter, that final page and with a deep sigh of both relief and great sadness we close the book. We want more but we must wait for the writer to be inspired again and the new words become new pages and in the end a book.

It is often said that the true writer will start with a blank sheet and write of life itself.  The words pile high as the writer looks at the keys and lets the words flow to the page like pieces of a puzzle falling in place and life writes its story coming through you and not from you.  Some say it is a gift, a talent, and perhaps writers are the vessel that hold the works, the stories that are truly from life.

In the end, our words, regardless of where they are from, will become words reverently wrapped within a leather-bound book, cherished and kept on a special shelf by the window always within reach, memories from the Book Of Life.

Life gifts us with poets, writers, storytellers, artists, and troubadours.  They are the chosen few, a band of hardcore troubadours that travel the lost highways together. They sit and stare at the blank page at 3 a.m. in the morning waiting for the poem to awaken so that it may be unleashed.  It will come, maybe not tonight but the poem and the poet will in time reveal its secrets.

When the night comes, we will all gather at the Writer’s Café, sharing our stories, writing sad songs, and putting to canvas the lost highway.  Perhaps we might even find the shadow dancers and secret gardens of legend.