Directionless

Alison and I are briefly home after a long day at the hospital with visits

from my brother Rod and sister-in-law Marnie, our niece Dana and

her husband Greig, as well as Alison, Alex and Charlotte and, of course,

Victor. Mike enjoyed all the family, but it is tiring for him.

He continues to endure pain, discomfort, and various indignities

without complaint.

We have taken a brief break but are now returning to the

hospital for the evening. Alison will write an update later.

Here below is the poem by Billy Collins that Jon 

Lampman mentioned. It seems to say something about

where I feel I am now.



Directions



You know the brick path in the back of the house, 

the one you see from the kitchen window,  

the one that bends around the far end of the garden 

where all the yellow primroses are? 

And you know how if you leave the path 

and walk into the woods you come  

to a heap of rocks, probably pushed 

down during the horrors of the Ice Age, 

and a grove of tall hemlocks, dark green now 

against the light-brown fallen leaves? 

And farther on, you know 

the small footbridge with the broken railing 

and if you go beyond the you arrive 

at the bottom of sheep's head hill? 

Well, if you start climbing, and you 

might have to grab on to a sapling 

when the going gets steep, 

you will eventually come to a long stone  

ridge with a border of pine trees 

which is as high as you can go 

and a good enough place to stop.  




The best time for this is late afternoon 

when the sun strobes through 

the columns of trees as you are hiking up, 

and when you find an agreeable rock 

to sit on, you will be able to see 

the light pouring down into the woods 

and breaking into the shapes and tones 

of things and you will hear nothing  

but a sprig of a birdsong or leafy 

falling of a cone or through the trees, 

and if this is your day you might even  

spot a hare or feel the wing-beats of geese 

driving overhead toward some destination.  




But it is hard to speak of these things 

how the voices of light enter the body 

and begin to recite their stories 

how the earth holds us painfully against  

Its breast made of humus and brambles 

how we will soon be gone regard 

the entities that continue to return 

greener than ever, spring water flowing 

through a meadow and the shadows of clouds 

passing over the hills and the ground 

where we stand in the tremble of thought 

taking the vast outside into ourselves.  




Still, let me know before you set out. 

Come knock on my door 

and I will walk with you as far as the garden  

with one hand on your shoulder. 

I will even watch after you and not turn back 

to the house until you disappear  

into the crowd of maple and ash, 

heading up toward the hill, 

percing the ground with your stick.