Each Faded Mile

 

I move with the spirit, wherever it goes––

Through winter’s heat, cold of summer,

Past the chrysanthemums of mud over everything.

I rise and fall in the eyes of others––

Even the infant who crawls into another room to cry.

Floods walk nine steps

Then turn along

A canyon wall.

The long years I retreated further into solitude

Brought only more of solitude’s allure

Till each faded mile was well known to me

& worth the pain of not knowing if love is returned.

 

 

1 May 1999

 

 

[Published in Quien Sabe Mountain:

Poems 1998-2004. © 2004 by Jim Cohn.]