to go or not to go into the wild





Sometimes I get a glimpse of what we should be doing
I see the secret and almost catch it by the wispy tip of its tail.
I am the only one who sees it drifting past and I don't know whether to point it out or not
the way out
the way free
to head into the woods and save us from the rest of our lives.

People have done it, you know,
packed up and left us all behind-
to live on the land, in the sun, with the birds
weaving their way through the earth like water.

It sounds like a lark
but it tugs like salvation
and I smell the hint of it close,
I even tickle the idea with a comment to you, but I don't sell it hard
and the vapor passes on.

But you've seen it too, haven't you?
Looking back, I have seen in your eyes, what aches behind mine now,
I didn't recognize what you were peddling then,
and now it's my turn and you aren't buying either,
not because you don't want it, just timing's against us,
or for us

And consider the littles...
they neither toil nor spin,
but shouldn't they be?
Or is taking them stealing their childhoods?
Erasing their proms and rites,
changing them in ways so fundamental that, when we return
they will never fit again
And what if they hate us for it?

Can't chance it
or won't,
so we go on and on
day-after-cul-de-sac-day-
we do everything safe and right for them,
even though they never asked us.
Sometimes I wonder if their bleary-eyed gazes are a plea that we
grab onto the wisp, lock hands and be yanked free once and for all.

What if we are depriving while we strive to provide? and
Anyway, so what if none of us fits when we return?
Who says we will return?
Who says we fit now?
In the end, we will land somewhere more fit for us-
Maybe this is our head start.




the wild is waiting