Читать книгу Compass and Clock - David Sanders - Страница 13

The Alternates

for Margaret Neill

Faced with going home again,

where you grew up and all of that,

you take the normal route, a road

connecting town with county, one

in which a set of simple turns

turns down your own gravel drive.

They don’t occur to you—the alternate

ways you’d sometimes walk—pastures,

farmers’ woods, really not much

more than seasonal display.

But at the time they drove you down

into their thick. You came out

the other side, nearer to town,

replaced by someone who saw more

than you had seen going in:

yourself, of course, a half an hour,

an hour, older.

They seemed amused,

the few villagers you saw,

when they said, as in my case,

“David, what brings you to town?”

Remember how you walked among them

as if with news they’d not yet learned?

Maybe they’d known all along,

patient while your knowledge, light

at first, grew large—a weight you wore,