Way Leads on to Way
Yesterday, as I traipsed through the welcoming woods
Safely enveloping Camp Nebagamon,
An inscrutable presentiment overcame me, with consternation,
Made me realize, as I wandered not quite aimlessly,
Back and again, with myriad slight twists, detours, digressions,
Over disparate labyrinthine paths,
Enchanted by the play of sunlight and shadowy patinas
Emanating from crosshatched dead tree trunks
Suspended at improbable angles, like spider nets...
Made me realize how way leads on to way,
Not necessarily with any definitive reason for its direction
Or explanation as to why it seems to be taking us there,
How we're getting to where we're going,
Whether it's new territory or old haunt the sooner to be forgotten,
Left to rot in memory's dim-lit swamps, marshes, and bogs...
Made me realize just how provisional my specific existence is,
How tenuous, expugnable, essentially expendable, fungible
My bones and flesh, my spirit and soul, really are...
Made me realize that whatever steps yet might be mine to take
Must be taken one monumental step at a time,
Slowly, with measured cadence, so I don't miss a solitary sign
That might evidence my trek's end, my destination's arrival,
Inspire me, with day's last breath of glimmering twilit shadow,
Exhale what's left of me, into the graceful, welcoming woods.
09/23/10 - (2)
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