An Open Course

Set an open course from where you are
and if your mind is right you’ll make it
though you closed your eyes
and let rogue wind and currents decide.
Set an open course from this spot you’re in.
You will get there in time.

You will choose to have people see you off
or you will meet them later, surprisingly so,
in a small dark bar that will remind you
of some other place you met them once,
or perhaps you won’t recall that at all —
whatever works, you tell yourself;
you are delighted to see them at any rate.

Set an open course from where you are then.
You leave them alone after a bit — your shyness
comes out and chases you down — or maybe
it’s just an urge to let things be? Maybe
you are done with all that. No more
socializing, no more small talk. It’s time
for a road in twilight, maybe in night rain,
getting on a bus with no one aboard to speak with
except you, of course; there’s nothing to be said.

You close your eyes now.
Nothing more needs to be said.
You go to Chicago, to Albuquerque, to Atlanta;
back, back to homes and hotels of your youth
to see what, if anything, has changed.
That driver will nod when you sigh and get back on
after a long look around.

Take me home, driver, you whisper.
He sets an open course
that takes you somewhere comfortable;
it is not home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T