There's a path that's clear & clean.
You know you could walk it,
could decide that this path would mean
something, if just for a minute.

The close packed dirt feels
solid, like a route meant for you, 
each step, each crack reveals 
that others before you came to

just this spot, came to a flowering
of their life as natural as
any failure or pain that stings
even in the remembering. At last,

step by step, the brightness comes, 
or a rustling you didn't hear before,
and you know that this wandering from
where you were is your new life course.




A project where students take a screenshot of a row of photos in their camera roll, and compose a poem inspired by (but not describing) the photos left to right. My four photos are above, harvested on a walk on our school campus Tuesday 10/24/23.