The well of well wishes,
wasted watery tears,
wuthering wherefore or why—
when came all the years?
Its emptiness emptied my pride,
and it’s well till all I could hope for
was empty as well.
When the sun finally shone through,
I could make not a form,
nor a face out of place,
nor a face in the norm.
But what carried me onward,
one day to the next,
was the hope that well wishing
would not leave me perplexed:
that the wishes were granted,
that the dreams would come true,
that I’d finally conquer
what I’d set out to do.
But that wasn’t as easy as initially planned,
as the road straight and narrow in front of me fanned
in as many directions as I’d moments to wait,
and each path once open was now locked past the gates.
The gates of decision and the keys of self-doubt
locked rather firmly.
Would I ever get out?
Did I know how to do this?
Did I know when to try?
Should I ever have uttered any plan to decide?
The key, I would find out, was an act or deed,
not a thing beheld or mistaken or misdeed.
Any step was a good step. Any loss be regained,
as long as this action was quickly explained.
By stepping,
or stepping on steps once stepped not,
by jumping—fast-jumping—over gaps I’d once thought
not to pass any judgment or waste any time,
wishing for answers, not working to find.
What I made in my mind be surpassed
by the struggling forms of what shook loose from my hands.
What I’d dreamed would be sweet would lack by a mile
the dust and the furrows of sweat from my brow.
Anxieties tall as the shadows o’er my soul
dissolve from here on—
pay them no thought as on the day I was born;
today anew I know what to do.