Follow

I suppose it wasn’t fair for me

to expect you to catch me

when I fell so far so fast.

I imagine it was like trying to catch

a comet or a meteorite

streaking through the sky.

You never had a chance of bringing me down to earth,

no more than I could escort you through the water or sky.

I never stopped believing in magic, but you started too late,

telling me you understand when you’ve only just begun to see.

I’ve never understood how you saw me as free–

can’t you see how much I still have left to lose,

even after it looks like I’ve lost everything?

I’m not hitching Route 66 with Bobby McGee,

nor am I on Kerouac’s road.

I wrap hawks’ wings around mountains ,

gathering them up in great, smoky

blue-ridged bundles of rocks and trees

so they don’t block my view of the river,

which shows a clear path to the sea,

shows every path in me, the wide gaping

inlet where fresh water becomes salt,

unseen life doing the work of alchemists and wizards,

estuaries of everything quietly swelling and shrinking,

the moon pushing and pulling, like the water on the earth,

the water in my body is a child on a swing in a park.

follow the river follow the leader follow your heart follow your bliss

maybe it’s as simple as this.