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First Line: Many paths in the woods have chosen
Last Line: As now I understand
Subject(s): Life


Many paths in the woods have chosen
me, many a time,
and I wonder often what this
choosing is: a sublime

intimation from far outside
my consciousness (or for
that matter from far inside) or
maybe some train of mortality

set in motion at
my birth (if our instruments
of observation were fine
and precise enough to

trace it) or maybe only disparate
appeal, pure chance,
the distant drumming of a partridge
in spring, the advancing

maple-color along a
lane in fall, or only
that the mud was less thick one way
than another was. Free

or determined? Again and again
I went the one way
and not the other, who knows why?
I wish I could know. Maybe

it would explain the other
things that worry me. But
I have no compulsive need now,
not any longer. What

I know is that whether I walked
freely or trudged exhausted
I chose one way each time and
ended by being lost.

I think I sought it. I think I
could not know myself until
I did not know where I was.
Then my self-knowledge continued

for a while while I found
my way again in fear
and reluctance, lost truly at
last. I changed the appearance

of myself to myself
continually and
losing and finding were the same,
as now I understand.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org




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