In the end,
she became more than she expected.
She became the journey,
a never ending journey.
For she did not end,
but simply changed directions
and kept going.

Head south on W Doubt Drive
0.2 mi

Turn right onto N Confused Court
0.8 mi

Slight left to stay on N Frustrated Fairway
1.0 mi

Turn right onto W ******* Rd
0.2 mi

Turn left onto N Hell Hwy
0.5 mi

Turn right onto W Anger Ave
0.2 mi

Turn left onto N Pain Place
1.6 mi

Turn right onto W Suffering St
0.2 mi

Turn left onto N Regret Road
1.1 mi

Turn right onto W Depression Drive
0.2 mi

Turn left onto N 68th St

N 68th St turns slightly left and becomes S Agony Ave
0.4 mi

Continue onto E Therapy Terrace

Slight right to stay on Self Forgiveness Blvd
0.4 mi

Turn right onto E Understanding Way
2.2 mi

Turn left onto Acceptance Alley
0.5 mi

Continue onto Lovers Lane
0.3 mi

Lovers Lane turns slightly right and becomes Peace Place
99,000,000 mi

You have arrived at your destination.

It’s 18 years later and I’m strolling down O’ Connell Street.
I notice a rough-sleeper in a shop doorway. There is a queue
for the bank machine contouring around his limbs
as he lies face down on the hard ground talking loudly to himself.

I remember how the investigators worked flat out in Kosovo,
almost captive to the corners of fields and the cruelty
of the events they sought to prove, the soil they touched
became a membrane surrounding remote scars.

They lay face down at times in abandoned crops,
measuring tracks, listening for crowded spaces,
recording the gossip of trees.
They reminded me of Indian scouts from the movies,
feeling for the signature of passing armies
in the broken grass beneath their fingers.
They were asking the dead for directions, the way somebody
might search a cemetery, calling on long deceased
relatives to whisper if they are close or not.

Soon the world will discover another war crime and the skeletons
of civilisation will once more bear witness to its own ******.
As the Earth opens recent wounds I imagine the rough-sleepers
as skeletons of society communicating with scouts,
investigators leaning over precipices,
contemplating what goes into the filling of a trench.

Michael J. Whelan

I often wonder if Robert Frost
in all his life ever got lost
did that road he took need corrections
if so, as a man, did he ask directions?

Some went West
and others went East.
The ones in between
found they liked South the least.

The traitorous winds
carried news from the mouth
of a stranger who wandered
the dreaded South.

They said:

"Glory and war in the West.
Peace and sacrifice in the East.
The North holds freedoms and complex rules.
The South has no time for such duels."

Those of the West,
those of the East,
and the Northern inbetweeners
listened with incredulity.

But the Southerner just repeats:

"Glory and war in the West.
Peace and sacrifice in the East.
The North holds freedoms and complex rules.
The South has no time for such duels."

"If we fight not for glory,
then why fight at all?
War is a necessary evil!"
Those Westerners say, how uncivil.

"Peace cannot yield
without sacrifice.
Someone always has to lose their life!"
Easterners cry full of strife.

"Freedoms are protected
if you follow the rules.
Speech must be regulated, calm, and cool."
Said from those under Northern rule.

But the Southerner repeats like a record loop:

"Glory and war in the West.
Peace and sacrifice in the East.
The North holds freedoms and complex rules.
The South has no time for such duels."

Then the wind finally stopped
spreading its message.
But the lofty seeds that traveled with the wind,
planted themselves in places they've never been.

And they started to grow into something more.
Freedoms and rules.
Peace and sacrifice.
Glory and War.

I used to think the moon followed me everywhere I went.
Like a beacon of light guiding me to where I needed to be.
Now as I sit in this car looking a the man in the moon asking,

Where to next?