That Road, Again

Wandering, wandering, wondering, walk,
Places and pathways to no place at all,
Curse to the calendar, curse to the clock,
Timekeeping distracts and casts a pall,
On pacing and thinking and taking stock,
To be walking awaking whatever befall.

Footfalls press on through the underbrush,
Unsteady the footfall that knows not its lot,
Backwood brambles, entangle and crush,
As clothing and hair, even skin are caught,
Then pause as a clearing whispers a shush,
In silence and solitude will my soul be taught.

Musing, mine eye, did spy a familiar path,
A passage neglected, like a long lost friend.
Evaded through the storm and its aftermath,
Now it freshly compels my soul to attend.
A hard climb, where grace tempered in wrath,
Redeems! For in penance the path I'll ascend.

Of those days where my feet had but strayed,
A wanton wandering in the dark night of my soul.
Are such days ever lost? How are they weighed?
Are they but flotsam floating on life's rocky shoal?
Such stumbles — the place where grace is conveyed,
The floundering footsteps of beloved young foal.

Wandering, wandering, wondering, walk,
Places and pathways to a place never seen,
In communio, in presence, my steps in lock,
Even while walking in that space in-between,
Walking soul soars-crying like a mystic hawk,
In body, in blood, on a path long foreseen.

Footfalls press on...