The Calling

17 June 2011

I feel the call,
  so familiar,
  so much a part of me
  that I can not remember a time
  when it was not with me.

I remember vividly alone in bed,
  just 10 years old,
  and knowing
  that I was going to Africa,
  that I was bound for shores
  far from my home.

I saw myself working with people
  whose skin and lives and culture
  differed from my own,
  but with whom I shared
  this little planet
  and with whom I would share the
  many riches endowed on one
  born on American soil.

That call reaches out from my past
  and touches my soul,
  invigorates my breath,
  excites my passion.

It reaches farther back even
  than the bed of that 10-year old child.

I can feel it reach into the universe,
  to the hands that crafted this soul
  and instilled its purpose.