.
Though you can see in the distance, outlined precisely
With speechless clarity, the place you must go,
The problem remains
Judging how far away you are and getting there safely.
Distant objects often seem close at hand
When looked at grimly.
But between you and those broken hills (so sharply in focus
You have to believe in them with all your senses)
Lies a host of mirages:
Water put out like fire, the shimmer of flying islands,
The unbalancing act of mountains upside down
Passing through too much air,
Light shifts, fidgets, and veers in ways clearly beyond you,
Confusing its weights and measures with your own
Which are far simpler:
A man on foot can suffer only one guiding principle
Next to his shadow: One Damm Thing After Another,
Meaning his substance
In the shape of his footsoles against the unyielding ground.
When you take a step, whatever you ask to bear you
Is bearing your life:
Sound earth may rest on hollow earth, and stones too solid
To budge in one direction may be ready
To gather no moss
With you, end over end, in another. You’ve been foolhardy
Enough already to make this slewfooted journey
Through a place without pathways
Where looking back seems a disheartening as relearning
The whole mad lay of the land by heart
After an earthquake.
At last, watching your step, having shrugged off most illusions,
And stumbling close enough to rap your knuckles
Against the reality
Of those unlikely rocks you’ve stared at through thick and thin
Air and the dumb-shows of light, your hope should be,
As a hardened traveller,
Not to see your trembling hands passing through cloud-stuff,
Some flimsy mock-up of a world spun out of vapor.
