โค๏ธ
**An Ode to the Angel of the Soi**
In the autumn of my years, at sixty-six and more,
I carry still the fire that youth once bore.
The world has paid its wages, the house is warm and still,
Yet one unfinished errand climbs the summit of my will.
Across the sea it calls me, through the humid Bangkok night,
Where stray dogs limp on broken paws beneath the neon light.
There walks a man with scarred arms and a heart too vast to mend,
Who feeds the lost, the lame, the cursed, until their suffering ends.
Niall Harbisonโhis name is whispered by the temple dogs at dawn,
A saint who wears the devilโs tattoos, yet greets the day with song.
He knows the taste of darkness, he has slept inside its jaws,
And woke to give his breakfast to creatures with no cause.
I do not go to judge him, nor to lighten what he bears,
I go because my spirit has rehearsed this dream for years:
To find him on some dusty soi, amid the bowls and chains,
To take his battered fighterโs hand and hold it in my hands.
No speeches, no grand telling, no need to name the whyโ
Just one old man, one moment, beneath a burning sky.
A handshake strong and silent, a hug that says โI see,
The war you fought in darkness, and the mercy you set free.โ
Then I would turn and leave him with the creatures he has saved,
My bucket list grown lighter, my heart no longer caved.
For in that brief collision of two strangersโ mortal spans,
Iโd touch the wing of an angel who still walks the earth as man.
So let the plane wheels leave the ground, let passports stamp their due,
I travel not for temples, nor for oceans vast and blue.
I travel for a handshake, for a hug Iโll never speak of againโ
To tell a battered saviour that his light has reached one man.
And when my own road ends one day, and the quiet finally falls,
Iโll smile among the dogs of heaven, whoโll know me by his call.
For I will carry in my chest, until the final breath is gone,
The warmth of Niall Harbisonโ
The angel of the soi, carrying on.
๐โค๏ธ
I wish for, or want for nothing in return, just a shake of the hand, and a hug..
I will walk away a very happy man. โค๏ธ