As wayfaring strangers
On roads fraught with dangers
In lands seeming gone lawless
On no map could they see
No guide say where it be
A town called Solace.

But they went on with hope
With heat and cold to cope
Through hinterland and pollis
And still they found
No spot of ground
That looked like a town called Solace.

After what seemed an age
They met an ancient sage
In a lonely, but peaceful place
‘Wise one’, they said
‘Is it somewhere ahead’
This town called Solace?’

‘No town worthy that name does exist
If your care for one another you enlist
Here, in this valley flawless,
You that worthy town can build
Then will your quest be fulfilled
In a town called Solace!’

Photo by Fabrizio Conti on Unsplash

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I’m not used to making things rhyme, but I tried to follow the structure and rhyme scheme of an old favorite, “Eldorado” by Edgar Alan Poe. Online rhyming dictionaries were very handy.

Bob Wertzler is retired from almost twenty years in the mental health field in California and Arizona. There are times the title, “Recovering Therapist”, seems to fit. In 2006 he retired to move to Western North Carolina to help and become primary care giver for his father who had developed Dementia. Before all that, there was work at various times as a soldier (US Army 1967-70), community organizer, cab driver, welfare case worker, wooden toy maker, carpenter, warehouse worker, and other things. He relates to a line in a Grateful Dead song, “What a long, strange trip its been.”