Monday, September 28, 2015

MANY A VOYAGE IN A SINGLE JOURNEY



THE MAN REMEMBERS THE KID

I, like all before me,
left the land of youth
for the country meant for man.

As I walked
the scenery became ever changing,
evolving, at first elemental
then onward to complex equations
where solutions though oft not easy, did come.

Thinking, always thinking
about not where my foot was
but where it had just been removed from,
using that step to plan the one about to come.
Aye, the days when the richness of knowledge
found aside the road were truly wondrous.

I saw the monks, mendicants, the bums, the boors,
the tallest trees with hand and foot so shady
almost blocking my guide, the ever distant light of the end.
Through it all I had learned to navigate.
Always questioning my existence
yet never my persistent stretching of the leg forward to provide.

I came upon many a stolen street grate
fell a time or two into the sewers
where comes the bad, that men so easily do.
Young and strong of a mind to clean my way.
I climbed out to continue on my journeys path.
Still alooking, looking to see which way was my way.

Until the day I met a her who changed the I to we.
From then on forward
there was no plotting with intention a steady direction.
Increase the wind and lay on more canvass
the exciting days of life, love work and family
began needing a charting of another unfamiliar course.

© M Durfee
9.28.2015

23 comments:

  1. The road sounds somewhat familiar...

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    1. As it should Jeff, with you it should be especially strong in the familiarity.

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  2. Sounds like you found your way
    or our way, the we way - we all have to grow up at some point,
    and hopefully they can see beyond our sewer trips,
    and see where we got back up.

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    1. I read a sad story this morning X--A woman who had been sentenced to death for a murder she committed at 16--had her sentence commuted to 60 years. after 27 she was paroled and was doing good for herself, had a college degree, job, family, fiance and integrated well back into society.

      Friday she took a .380 and put a round in her brain, she it seems, just could not forgive herself for her teenage past. The victims grandson had forgiven her and visited and wrote with her for decades, her friends, family and employer all knew what she had done as a 16 year old, she left too much of herself in the sewer and didn't know how to get that piece back to complete her peace.

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  3. How very lovely...and if I may say so, welcome!
















    ALOHA
    ComfortSpiral
    =^..^=

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    1. Cloudia--whater you sayin? I tend towards the depictions of what I see too much? Love you sister but rainbows are few and far between and trade winds non existent here. But occasionally I can look back with clarity towards a path I loved and now fight to keep open and not fully forgotten.

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  4. a reader of yours sent me a link for you and I am glad she did! I like what I have seen so far and look forward to spending some time here. I recently quit my blog of 4 years and most of the blogs I followed. I will however save this one to my bookmarks. I have been enough dark places to have an appreciation for light. good blog man!

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    1. Thank you Mohave Rat-- my ideas of poetry and writing are simple. Just wrte the truth in a way i can understand, most people should be able to see the picture. BUT don't think I write in this slightly formal style all the time I wander about a bit in both verse and subject. It keeps my head out of the oven so to speak. Welcome any time and always feel free to speak your mind.

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  5. The path you describe is the path most followed by so many.

    Some flounder and fail to negotiate all the twists and turns along life's avenue, but most seem to win through somehow.

    You put it so well, so clearly, and so truly Mark.

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    1. Thank you for that last line Philip. Yes as I age I can see though not everyone walks the same way (how boring) everyone generally has a foot on a path that is unremarkable & similar.

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  6. Families do a real number on the charting of a course. Even when you think you've got everything lined up, someone will come up with a demand or alternative that lays everything to waste.

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    1. Alice it's not like our youth when it was eat it all because kids in China are starving is it, or parents had ultimate authority over situations that arose. This is the price paid for liberating too soon children into the world.

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  7. love walking the road with you and like that final verse...good good!!

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    1. Gerry I had to reach a certain age before I wasn't frozen in place by the idea of someone walking with me. I am more open now, even though i have stopped reading in public.

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  8. I love this part of the journey best: Until the day I met a her who changed the I to we. ~

    Have a good week Mark ~

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    1. Grace after nigh on 3 decades together with few breaks i think I acknowledge that my wife has at times influenced the journey--besides i am a well trained husband, in charge of only the dog and the toilet cleaning.

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  9. One of your more positive message poems, eh? I like it.

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    1. Charles they are all positive depending on how they are understood--or they are all positive because i have not walked to the final shore yet perhaps.

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  10. A salute to the journey and the hearth!

    Love the word "mendicant."

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    1. To the journey yes to the end of it *shrug* show me the door. I beg but not for life only for quiet and peace Erik.

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  11. Mmmm, many a path to tread... Directions change. Who can predict where we end up. Come along, highways and byways await, it's impossible to stay in one place. So to speak.

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    1. Shadow you know my mind oft times better than I do myself.

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  12. Mark-Grace beat me to it! I love that line. My family has influenced most aspects of my life-and I am the better for it. I think.... xo

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So Walking Man I was thinking...