My Poem

serenejournal wrote me a poem:




You can't blame the track
for not going
where the train wants to go

You can't blame the river
for not flowing
up and out to that town you loved, inland

The map may not be the territory,
but the territory isn't all there is, either
there are edges to things
places beyond,
where the train jumps its track
and the river jumps its bed
and I jump through my own memory,
through my own me,
and become the power that moves me,
become that unworn mountain trail,
that craggy, parched land that hasn't seen a river,
that destination that doesn't appear on any map,
and doesn't tell you where it is
and doesn't tell you where you are
that makes its own way

A train track
A deep riverbed
A map
A metaphor

None of these things will save me
None of these things will tell me where to go

I get to do that
for myself