A final 'Poetry Sunday'

Or perhaps a penultimate one; I haven't quite decided yet.

I haven't posted anything of my own for ever such a long time (crikey - nearly a year-and-a-half, it seems!), so I thought I ought to dig out one last piece before I go. This one, although not particularly new, seems especially appropriate to my state of mind just now.

I have in the past tended to over-analyse these little scribblings of mine, or at any rate to over-explain the background circumstances which prompted them. This time, I'll just leave you to ponder it on your own.

The road

The road is not open

except in the hopeful heart,

the self-deceiving mind.

Not open at all, but closed on all sides,

hemmed in by fences, ditches,

cliffs and precipices,

scary dark forests and farmer's fields

you hesitate to trespass on;

shut off behind

by the past you're trying to escape;

blocked ahead

by another town

just like the one you left.

Going down a road

only brings the world on faster,

brings its confines closer to you,

narrows your possibilities

to the tyranny of destination,

to inevitable arrival.

The only thing to do

is be like the rabbit, the hedgehog:

Make your stand

in the middle of the road,

heedless, unmoving,

staring towards the far horizon,

waiting for the things

that move towards you.