Murky

There are only so many ways

this can go within a pseudo-infinite

timespan. I gently push

through dark, still water

to get to the door with the light

I think has always been there.

Nobody notices my wet clothes

as I walk through the stone arch

as only the bedraggled and tired

find their way on this path.

Is it late afternoon? Is it early autumn?

A group of elders sits on the far shore

(everywhere I look from where I float

seems far away)

and they seem jaded in a way I don’t want

for myself. People are awful but

the world is a wonderful place, I say,

but they don’t (want to) hear me.

I have to paddle back for something

I forgot and it feels like time is sticky

like cotton candy or earthworms.

I don’t mind backtracking because

there’s always something new to see.

I admit I’d like to be done

with this murky pool and see

some mountains, take a dryer path,

maybe sharing it with a friendly face.

I wake and sleep and it’s much the same

until I find my way across.