If I could choose one singular thing

To draw back the loneliness, boredom, and pain

Of living away from all I know

On a deserted island so far from home,

 

It wouldn’t be something that you could pack,

Stick in your pocket, or sling over your back.

No Xbox or laptop or electric thing,

Not even matches or a knife would I bring.

 

For man cannot live on bread alone,

On survival gear, or cellular phones.

He needs more than that to be alive,

Not just to breathe but to dream and to thrive.

 

“So what would you bring?” you may care to ask.

Well I’d say “A person to help with my task.”

A person who’d help me with shelter and food,

A person to be there when I’m in a sad mood.

 

A person I’d lean on when I’ve nothing but pray’rs,

And a person I’d help if the crying were theirs.

But also a person who’d bring out the light

And the fun there’s to have enduring the fight

 

Of surviving alone on that island so far.

We’d make the most of it, just as we are.

For saying “deserted” would no longer be true

If you had another, a friend with you.