The List

If I knew where I was, certainly then I would know where I'm going. There'd be clues in the tall trees and the waving grasses. The wind would blow in an understandable pattern, spilling secrets I decipher with the Rosetta Stone inside my belly.

There is no grass here. No trees.

I take mid-life stock of the to-do list I made up some years ago. It's smudged in spots, and some words have slid from the page, but I can guess which ones they were. Funny, I don't recognize the writing of my youth. Long loops and wide D's that take up twice the space of the other letters. Straight up and down lines, while today I write with a slant; deep right, edging left, right again.

Ah, the list, right. What's on that blasted list. Interrupted ideas. Divorced homesteads. Long strides off the page. Summers of frustrated inaction. Deep winter scars like glaciers retreating. I meant to do none of these things, but I dig in my pockets and there's no other list.