Not many people know
where the old road goes
I’m older now and it seems
there are more and more
       paved roads
that lead to nowhere —
   most of the time

As a kid, living miles up
  a rough potholed,
country road — a hike away
from the edge a small town
  out in the sticks,..
you come to know onliness,
blind to a journey alone

   I never stepped on
cracks in a town sidewalk —
  never learned what
  "superstitious" was,
    like the other kids
        from town

It wasn't the cracks
  in the sidewalk
I feared to tread;
steppin' on 'em breaks nothing
  already broken —

It was just all so different
than the long walk home
where that old road goes —
grandma always said:
"follow the creek upstream;
it'll always lead you back
  where you belong"

   The washboards
in the steep narrow road
up the hill, were like
  muddy stair steps
in the rainy season

Sometimes I followed
on up the creek below
to the upper log bridge
     swimmin' hole,..
where I learned to listen
to the sweet melody
of unclouded days;
and for a moment
I thought I belonged

     I still haven't
found my way out
  of this memory
I’m holding onto —
because life is just
an unstoppable
season, passing by
    on its own;
   like the way
     rainwater
  in the swollen
creek bed flows:

   And I'm just
another passing September
no one will remember —

   most of the time


Jesse Stillwater ... September 2018