for Tim Pilgrim, who is a real poet —
The river road winds
like a boy’s path home,
a boy
rich in imagination
who finds in every stone
some brave’s thumbprint,
in every bush
the trapped
curves of a Longhorn steer.
I have been captive to that desire,
known the torment of the fire,
begged virtue’s insistent voice
bend my heart to safer choice,
a straighter way home.
It is a trap. At every turn,
I turn aside
to where convergent lines collide,
webs spun
of dreams, desire,
and imagination.
In every moment,
there is the intoxication
of indecision,
to go this way
or that. There is the rapture
of the vision
that plunges forward
where the river road
makes the bend back.
A friend of mine
said one time,
“Nothing is in vain
–not pleasure,
not wonder, not pain–
if only it makes a poem.”
I look to the certainty in his voice
where the road turns
and I make the choice.
–Glen Larum