Missing Heroes

Reading great fiction combined with a healthy intake of Great Nonfiction has various effects on a person. One of them is something we occasionally label "hero worship;" but this is often a simplistic way of dismissing an impulse we all experience in various forms and can't very simply explain. The foundations of "hero worship" could appear fantastic when examined closely, especially when the heroes we so admire are either 1) fictional, 2) dead, or 3) inherently flawed people like us.

Actually, though, I didn't set out to analyze hero worship. Maybe later. For now, I'm only expressing something inextricably "native" to each one of us. I want heroes - or a hero - too.

Missing Heroes?*

I saw you laugh in the face of the law,
and as I watched you walk away,
I wondered what secret you’d stumbled on,
what caused your smile.
Freedom?
‘Cause you weren’t living by the dictates of this world anymore.
You weren’t living in this world anymore.

You’d found a different set of rules
and in the light of your eyes
we all looked like fools,
our hearts all shriveled from disuse.
And the next time I bent to the world’s routine
my soul said, What’s the use?

I want to go
where men like him have gone.
This world seems empty now
or lacking anyhow.
I’d like to follow in Elijah’s footsteps,
where men like him have gone:
ride a fiery chariot, win a starry crown.

* And now, after you've read it, the disclaimer. This is one of those "rag" poems that would work better as a spoken word piece than on the page...
© 2004 Ariel Vanderhorst