Where I'm Going

Where am I going?
To the next stop,
and then I'll decide
whether to get off,
or to carry on.
It frustrates you that I don't know now
that I avoid and evade the question;
distract and detract from the answer,
feel my way forward shaking with fear.

I never wanted to know where I was going
5 year plans, and 10 year plans all too
tedious, drawing a critical path to the grave;
don't ever tell adventurers and avid readers
what happens next.
But suddenly
in the dark of that last winter
the tombstone seemed all too far away with
unknown suffering between me and it.

Now,
I am painstakingly drawing a line,
a daisy-chain of lights, and cups of tea, and takeaway coffee and Hollywood movies, and politicians' silly sex
scandals, and safe holidays and schools and flowers
and grass, to that final resting place, and I will
walk the line religiously for
the next forty years.
**