I was appearing
On a back porch in front of the world
I didn't have a song to sing
I didn't have a title a degree
An office an oracle

I did have a handbag
Full of failures
Of misunderstandings
Of hopes from love

I stood unsure of myself in the yellow spotlight
And I asked my first question

I am not the first to have asked it
-standing in front of the world-
And it wasn't even my first time
I asked it

Indeed the words laid
Out in front of me
Like a worn dirt trail across the campus green
Like an obvious horizon

The horizon is somewhat different when
You expect the world is flat
Destinations are no longer a fuzzy objective
But a vast emptiness
Which the bravest turn from

Its no wonder under this plastic light
That clarity and compassionate
collusion against the fall
Appear in fact to be waiting patiently
For no one to arrive

Some no longer ask the question
And that alone neatly divides us
Much more than our varied answers

With that line drawn I stand
Stand over here
On my knees unsure of the answer
But unwilling to stop asking…
A blind man swinging against darkness