Adjustment,
     It is as though
     The pattern of my life
     Were preset on some
Dated, failed roadmap:
     A splotch of coffee grounds
     Covering that junction
     Of older highway and
          Uncharted
          Unimagined
                     Interstate;
     Streaming confusion at detour signs,
     New construction,
     The demise of older ways:
Not quite lost,
     But certain I follow
                          wrong routes,
     Unknown paths
     Through known country
(Or familiar paths
     In unknown territory?),
Bound for
     Ephemeral home:
     The end of the rainbow,
     The land beyond the clouds,
     The grand destination:
The unreadable name circled in
     Runny magic marker
     On one dirty corner of
                            the map.
8/25/81
 

Index     Dream Shrinking