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"I am learning a little—never to be sure—
To be positive only with what is past,
And to peer sometimes at the things to come
As a wanderer treading the night
When the mazy stars neither point nor beckon,
And of all the roads, no road is sure"

Experience by Carl Sandburg

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summarizes my life, the fits and starts,
at every fork, the wrong road taken

and I lean back,
pensive from my shame,
knowingly confessing
that I would make the
wrong choices again

maybe, sadly, most likely...

the maps they provided early on,
were ok, but I never lived
on their edge,
never went far enough,
warned off,
all bordered in the red of
"go no farther,"
so stuck to the worn and grooved paths,
ventured out,
but retreated to safe center court
covered with the wounding cuts of
self-castigating tears,
for my lack of courage
and the waste and burdens
engendered permanent

maps for me,
are now no longer necessary,
for any road of mine is
closer my god to thee,
and my notice that
"the-show-is closing"warning
is a nearing destination,
slips quietly into my back pocket

now, I permission routine
to drive my simpler life,
where easy, gentling kindness
of the usual, the regularizing
steady as she goes,
are my comfy shoes upon
to tread the familiar road of surety...

that sates but doesn't fully satisfy

for the harsh hanging judge,
my resident permanent
on the top floor of my brain,
sentenced me as a young man
me to life imprisonment
in my very own self-built
asylum insane,
where all the tempting ladders were
maps that led to
This Way Out

was so fearful
to grasp and vault
from the top rung to
the uncertain pleasures
of the unknown of the other side

only here,
in the paths of my poetic words
do I venture across boundaries
and back over lines
that dare and
dare not
be refused

the great exposition
the great expiation
the great explication
of one man

words are my living will,
my testament,
my behests, my bequests,
my medals of discourage and
urges not followed,
tarnished but worn proudly

left to my
children's children
as a lesson plan
of one man

of a life poorly well and almost lived
these words are the rebar to build,
to cartograph,
to illustrate
new maps,
better ways,
signed posts
to take the risk of writing,
go gadget go abroad,
create new poems, new styles,
better than those
I that live~leave-left rightly
behind for
fellow travelers,
grandchildren,
who will - who must!
use them
to unmake the errors
I herein freely confess

12:07 Sunday July 10th of his sixty fifth year