Something Worth Trying

The missed turn, the doubling back, the losing track:
are we there yet? Now, a busted brake light
of a truck in front impatiently blinks.
Weary of its life of travel, of finding
those precise gaps in time where it can glow.
We’ve all taken a wrong right somewhere.
Or a left, when we should have gone straight ahead.
Sometimes, the distant memory of defying distance
is enough: a pair of slippers worn out from crossing
three million pedestrians. And sometimes, a song
on the radio you know all the words to:
taking you back, and back again
to a rural childhood home and its nameless
undiscovered lives. Can you even remember now?
All those blunders, those seedlings left unwatered,
the brook dried up, too arid even for slugs?
Look, the road is wide enough for your mistakes.
Patient enough. It will forgive you
the dust and sweat, forgive you that crumpled sheet
inside your pocket, that single line scribbled on it,
almost cryptic, jagged from all the bumps
and the insistence of inertia.
Write home, write home, write home.


(Lines passed between Mikael de Lara Co, Charles Tuvilla, and Gian Lao on the way home from Punta Fuego, 11 February 2012.)