Wayfinder

On the beaten path,

The path gets more beaten the more feet that beat it.

It guides us and the ones that came before.

Have you any education?

Have you any job?

Have you any health insurance?

Yessir, yessir! Three bags full!

I at some point got pushed to the edge

And pushed to the edge,

The outside edge of the path.

There, roughage sprouted up and made the journey difficult.

I had to clear it away to be free,

To make space to walk where I needed.

To take space that I didn’t have to ask for.

And in that space at the edge of the trail,

Sometimes I found small side paths,

Where others had beaten me to the edge,

And had explored ahead a bit that I might know the way.

Sometimes they were dead ends,

Grown-over homes from bygone days

Sometimes fraught with warning,

Stories remembered only in the scars of the trees

And proud scratches on the forgotten stonewalls.

But still, forward must I walk,

Beaten path or no.

And every time I clear another hedge

And discover another hidden path,

I know I leave the way wider

For those that come after.

Get off the beaten path

Ask where does it go?

Follow your own feet

To find your way home.