Journey Taken

Journey Taken


Thirty-day journey; one step at a time,
one poem a day, for a month.
Daunting given possible roadblocks of
real life contingencies.
Same month I needed
to finish a book half written,
to finish several long edits for others,
to get ready for a big show,
plus myriad other things around the house;
it being spring.

Seasonal chores like
washing windows,
working on
dethatching the lawns,
clearing the gardens,
stopping to indulge
in warmer weather,
in blooming daffodils,
in watching the robin feathering her nest.

Major holiday and sadly,
seven family members or close friends
departing this earth for a higher plain.
Emotional side trips,
downed brain-wires,
flooding memories.
No clear path anywhere.
A small earthquake went completely unnoticed
as overgrown liferoads closed it.

Journey.
Certainly not the straight shot
from point A to point B.
Circuitous, meandering, doubling back,
full of
flat-tired nights,
over-heated engine spin-outs,
blue and red-lighted speed trap dysfunction.
A thirty-day sentence
with trite toll booths,
cliched crashes,
and stop lights stuck on red.

Pushed past
do not enter barricades,
picked my way through
avalanche fallout,
swam raging rivers
of stressed-out family members
needing consolation
when I had none to spare.
One poem at a time,
day by day.
What should have been utter joy
crashed and burned in the
cataclysm of Everything Going Wrong.
Sirens screaming in warning.
Pushing past 'Do Not Enter'
to the calm after the storm
and finding myself
a bit disconcerted
at journey's end.