In Circles (Poetry)

Sometimes I half-convince myself
that everybody else has a map
except me
everybody else knows more or less
exactly where they’re going —
they have a plan
which is widely known — accepted
as direction.

My life has been a ramble —
a meander along a road
with stop-off points
and no real sense
of arriving anywhere
that was meant.

It was like at school
when they’d run out of books
or information sheets
and one or two kids like me
were told to share with those
who really would have preferred
to work alone.

They held the page askew
so I couldn’t really catch
more than a glimpse
of that pale map —
the impression of a land
that didn’t fit somehow
with my reality

and although I tried for years
to follow that increasingly
vague instruction
I guess right from the start
I probably set off
the wrong way.

If I could record —
map out from memory
the route from there to here —
draw in every narrow track —
name the dead-ends —
the cul-de-sacs of sorrow —
the highways of despair
linked by short lanes
(happy in anonymity)
perhaps I would —

but the lines are growing over —
lost to weeds
and wilderness is claiming
where I’ve walked
in circles
for so long
and I meet myself at crossroads
not a milestone
not a fading signpost anywhere
in sight.