Travels In The Mystery

Set out in misty pre-dawn darkness and took the first wrong that was possible

By the time the sun had smudged the night horizon my way back was lost for good

Quickly found my awkwardly-packed and hazy goals a useless burden to be cast off

Now I cruised along powered by the illusions scattered out from my youthful imagination

The sun was not too hot and I set a pace that did not strain me

All along the way kind strangers righted me and saw me off again

Nights always found me blotting out any accidental recollections

The countryside kept on changing slowly and so did I, drifting on

Good women bade me stay with them to build enduring dreams

Old dogs roamed with me taking scraps beside my fires

Aging men told me these riddles and to this day they grow even harder

Watched the sun rise many times but did not really see what it lit

Heard voices speaking softly in tongues that were strange to me

The seasons changed along with the scenery as I passed by to somewhere else

It took me quite a while not to fear all those things I did not understand

Often I woke up excited to explore another place I had never been before

Paused here and there for half a season where the living was warm and easy

Picking grapes and apples, harvesting wheat and berries occupied me in their time

With no goal and nowhere to return to, I could not in honesty say that I was ever lost

My potential satisfaction increased with every hardship I endured

Deeply drifted snow blanketed me until late Spring during several years

At last began to notice that my growth rings began to narrow into simple habits

Even as my eyes grew dimmer, I used my experience to fill in the finer details

My opinions lay quietly inside that they might not damage my chances on the road

Stayed with men who built warming fires from old debris in rusty barrels

Slept in sturdy cardboard shelters and recycled newspapers into blankets

Walked trails I could not see as darkness overtook me in ever-deepening woods

Sought safety in the churches but they did not keep them warm

There were many times there was no path ahead and no room to turn around

Then again all directions seemed open, sharing equal beauty and great promise

Sometimes I wept with loneliness and at others with good cheer

Doors sometimes closed as I approached but many showed me warmth and light

Pursued my own tack without a map but many had been that way before

Laziness and greed were not parts of my own peculiar temptations

Found real beauty in the desert but only in the dark of night

Winters did not bother me in the lands where skies stayed mostly clear

Happiness stopped overcoming me so often but at last ceased to let me down so very hard

The disaffected no longer enchanted me but still the ordinary held no magnetism

Slept in castoff clothes with dirt in many layers between my toes

Paid too much for petty luxuries that could not satisfy my imaginary needs

Kept on walking and taking odd jobs right along with the many other immigrants

Met a couple pilgrims and caught snatches of their inner conversations

Learned to know the weather by the marching of the clouds

Watched the tides changing with the waxing and the waning of the moon

The gypsies would not speak to me cause I had nothing for them to steal

Wondered why the wild geese had decided to settle down within the cities

Did not have any snapshot history to prove that I was ever there

Got all the disgusting skin diseases but free the free clinics saw me through

Helped build orphanages and new wells, dirt roads and far-off one room schools

Talked to myself just enough to know that I could actually still hear

Watched the indentured flood the highways seeking a weekend recreation

Heard the children laugh and call me names and was tempted into wonder

Learned to read the water and followed the courses of rivers like good books

Was alone so long that I felt uncomfortable when I found myself in crowds

Grew skilled at untangling random knots but could not bind things together properly

Found that my contempt slowly turned into confusion when nothing could be changed

Studied the evolution of the litter that crept out in every direction on the trails

Felt my faculties decaying even as the world around me moved ever faster

Built a warm and quiet retreat deep inside my thickly-walled and slow-moving head

Began to see my own old footprints being made by other’s shoes

Set out for nowhere, so I could never say that I was ever really lost

Stayed mostly where the rain was so welcome you would not look for shelter

Could not fathom how many people now clung everywhere upon dear mother earth

Saw the headlines in passing, as if they emerged from my unconscious

Jumped into cold lakes to clean off my sweat and rinse out my mind

Rolled in the snow and shook like a dog and cackled into the emptiness

Carefully peed on the phony green lawns that I crept past in the night

Helped them hold me up as an example for their children to avoid

Listened carefully to the silvery tongues of their clever politicians

Compared the fantasies of those caught up in some religion or another

Watched as progress unfolded and put an end to many quiet places

Observed as dying cities spread and grew larger, even in their decay

Was poked and laughed at in a cage I built of my own dreams and fantasies

Got washed and fed by patient women who had seen it all before

Did not make a fortune and was abandoned by the merchants for lack of credit cards

Grew thin and wiry on scraps during long marches but did not complain

Set out with bright eyes and happy smile and only slowly grew gnarled and twisted

Found myself at last with a good set of well-tempered memories
Never stayed long enough anywhere to really leave it all behind

Never got all bent up about running out of time for the happily ever after

Read much more than I talked and wrote way more often than I shopped

Croaked and peeped out my little song on this one tiny green pond

Filled up with tears at the beauty of the frightfully large and empty universe

Spit a bit of ochre around my hand as it lay upon the canyon wall

Never had enough to toss it all aside and make some kind of a new start

Listened equally to the recovering alkies as to the suave opinion makers

Trudged on through one more war or man-made disaster after another

Wrung my hands in anguish through the wailing for the dead and the dying

Carried off the victims and looked for patterns in the smoke of their funeral pyres

Knew I had no ultimate goal but never doubted my sense of direction

Felt secure on lonely beaches where the waves crashed in endless trains

Abided in the valleys not yet buzzing with man’s abrasive touch

Happened upon a woman who spread peace tending plants and flowers

Wondered at the men who sought security by constantly preparing for another war

Saw them savor artificial victories and taste the bitterness of imaginary defeats

Set out with confused expectations and collected unrelated realizations

Grew older but was not deemed wiser and let it go at that

Considered my words so carefully that they mostly condensed into silence

Stepped aside as others rushed by me, heading off in different directions

Kept on walking, trying still to see it all for myself

Used up more than I helped build, reaped so much more than I had sown

Slowly regressed back through the infantile once again towards the void

Reached out back through time to those that I once had known

Looked forward in the night to the peace of pre-dawn hours

Set out again as someone different, but set out just the same

Did not lack for sustenance, comfort or human understanding

Loved the good earth that sustained me and wondered at its mysteries

Saw the moon through daylight clouds as if from somewhere else and far away

At last started simply observing as that growing mystery settled on in around me