April 28 - Pushing at the Edges

Narcisse Diaz De La Pena - Fontainblelau Forest

Pushing the Edges

I think we all get at life from the edges;
Pressing hard near the fences and the hedges.
The boundaries that keep us both out and in. So,
It depends which way you've set your mind to go,
As to whether you wind up where you first intended
Or found some other place where your story could have ended.

Anyway, only a bit of life is lived deliberately,
Most of it's more unfocused, much ado done vigorously,
And though it takes you roughly in your general direction,
Near enough that with the occasional course correction
You get somewhere that it was your original intention
To go had you chosen better and paid a great deal more attention.

I take the blame, though not without some reservation,
For though the roads turned, they were not themselves causation
Not entirely, for I could have gone a different way instead.
And sometimes I chose well, but sometimes I, the signs, misread.
Then it was stumbling through the brush, half-blind, trying hard to seize
Upon a beaten forest path I could not see from here - down among the trees.

Were we not promised accompaniment along this dusky path?
Were there not with us angels standing by to shield us from the wrath
Of forces cold, malevolent, hungry, utterly ill-intentioned?
Did we not feel evil press our edges, wolves best left unmentioned,
Lest they become substantial, too real to ignore, too hard to bear
Pressing us onto dark paths we had never really known were there?

Still, the light has kept pace for all this time that we have stumbled,
Forward, picking up our steps, while overhead the thunder rumbled.
And as we draw near the place to which our journey long has wended,
And glance back across our shoulders toward places where the light has ended,
It's harder as we take each step to feel regret for fences and the hedges
For we'd not be the one's we are without, we'd gently pressed the edges.


© 2017 by Tom King