ROADS LESS TRAVELED

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ROADS LESS TRAVELED

Nighttime deepens and map-maunderings rise;
I cannot sleep nor even think of bed.
I am gripped by a yearning for the past -
A twinge of regret over passed byways,
An instilled desire to retrace old steps.

An intimate, yet haunting guide,
My atlas - a map of time as well as space,
A nostalgic loom of past escapes from
Boredom, mundane living and entrapment -
Is my bittersweetened Furies and Fates

Counterpointing photographic pages
Deeper illume roiling mem'ries within.
So too do the flashbacks to years gone by
Moments of now snapping triggers within,
Photographic snapshots of times long passed.

I keep late nights, tracing over old trails,
As if a few glances backward in time
Can stave off having to fear death, and life;
To face today, to live today, as me.
The more journeys and wanderings I make
These deluding circles deepen further.
More roads passed by invoke new pangs within -
Questioning, with regrets and yearnings for
New quests and different escapes, would-be
Homeopathic cures for wanderlust.

Escapes from these my soul-voids are there none.
An inner soul-itch remains unresolved,
Not cured within this life, transcended
Only by embracing life's transience.
And so the maps are shelved, the journeys hid,
Mem'ries restrained for a semblance of now.
Until a faded past grows impotent
Leaving an uneasy present at rest.

And yet, indulged meanderings of mind
Arise unbid from some gloaming darkness.

Steve Snyder
Jan. 19, 2002

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