Long Enough to Know.

And so it is that you take, not a step forward,
but a step back, Trying
to understand where the path split
and you wandered into the wasteland that surrounds you.

It is hard to know. The path has so many others
veering left and right.
A dizzing array of options, and most of them
good enough. Few choices are dire, but

each has it’s own adventure, it’s own new
set of options and detours
and it is easy to become lost
in the most pleasant of ways.

It takes courage to go backwards.
It feels like failure when in fact
it is simply another adventure.
The same path can seem entirely different

When taken in the opposite direction.
and you have to be honest with yourself,
you have no assurance that as you go back
that your new choice will be any better,

but even the possibility of being wrong again is better
than going forward to a destination
that is all too famiiar
and all too wrong.

So you travel. Take notes. Look back.
Do it well enough, long enough.
Read your past with clear glasses,
and you find a better way, or at least a new adventure.

You know this.
You have wandered the forest long enough
to know.

About this poem

From time to time I need to recalibrate life.

I have journaled steadily for almost 20 years now. I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about growing a life they want, instead of living the life they get.

From those two thoughts (after writing in my journal this morning), this poem.

Tom