Way, Side B

Way

what is this road that separates us

across which I hold out the hand of my thoughts

a flower is written at the end of each finger

and the end of the road is a flower which walks with you

Tristan Tsara, Way, from Selected Poems, translated by Lee Harwood

On second thought, it would be too simple to see this as a dialogue between two people. Maybe what Tzara is talking about is something else altogether. Maybe the road he is talking about represents the future, while the flowers written at the end of each finger are all the possible choices we can make before taking the actual road, and the two entities separated by the road itself are just the two halves of ourselves, in the time before making a choice and the time after making that choice. In the end it’s just a matter of letting the right choice bloom like a flower to make our life meaningful, instead of letting it rot like a bunch of stale petals. It’s a poem about choice, and about the present becoming the future thanks to our knowledge of the past  ̶  all linked by the flower of conscience and awareness. It’s about wising up and shedding yet another skin to turn ourselves into a thing of beauty, constantly changing while taking new, unexpected turns.