On.

The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken,

into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you

as you stood where ground turned to ocean: no way

to your future now but the way your shadow could take,

walking before you across water, going where shadows go,

no way to make sense of a world that wouldn’t let you pass

except to call an end to the way you had come,

to take out each frayed letter you brought

and light their illumined corners, and to read

them as they drifted through the western light;

to empty your bags; to sort this and to leave that;

to promise what you needed to promise all along,

and to abandon the shoes that had brought you here

right at the water’s edge, not because you had given up

but because now, you would find a different way to tread,

and because, through it all, part of you could still walk on,

no matter how, over the waves.

David Whyte