A Journey

My deeds rolled past me like a wandering train,
my thoughts stood seeing them off from the platform.
They grew confused, and in the dust that rose
they lost themselves within themselves, shut tight.

The rains came pouring down. The roots lay bare.
Fingers kneaded dust into yellow mud.
And the wandering train, its carriages beckoning,
had quietly stopped beside me — at my back.

Onto the first of them I put my heart
just as it was, brimming — blood and all.
To two others I gave my hands
and the warm smile I hold in them.

Most of myself I had already left behind —
on the empty platforms I flung down love,
and in the horse wagons I had forgotten
a few friends, a quill, and the song.

In the last compartment I locked up a few questions.
I don’t know why — they never even tormented me,
their answers, in my snub-nosed childhood,
reaching out as if to save me.

I stood with myself at the end. Alone and still.
I was seeing my life off, impatiently.
But what I sought, in truth, was a station where I
could stop, step down, and find it.

1992–1999