Trails
Posted By Randy on January 15, 2012
The inspiration for this poem came while I was reading the intro to my Esteemed Friend Laurie Lacey’s 15 January 2012 Natural Healing Talk newsletter.
Some day soon, Mrs. LFM and Laurie’s Lady Rita, will tolerate Laurie and me sitting by a fire all night inspiring each other to even worse inscriptions than this! The mind recoils at the thought!
Trails
by LFM
Every act, decision made,
Is ne’er a job that’s done.
Instead, it makes a path to tread
Down which your fate will run.
No matter how well planned your course,
However pinned and plotted,
Deciding to turn right or left
Affects how life’s allotted.
As life unfolds before your gaze,
And things come into view,
There’s risk you’ll trade a well lived life
For one that’s just lived you.
One trail may run both smooth and straight,
Through vistas wide and clear,
So most may choose that one before
The branch that’s dark and drear.
The one that weaves through gnarly woods,
‘Cross rivers needing fording,
With promise of adventure laced
And evils needing warding.
But they who seek the easy ways,
Those free from strife and test,
Will come to learn all gentle paths
Don’t lead to peace and rest.
What’s good in Life eludes the grasp
Of those who miss the fact
That what we get from living it
Springs from our every act.
Myself, I worry not about
The path on which I walk.
My care is for the place I AM,
And action before talk.
My every act, my every thought,
My every given damn;
My death will come, unflinching met
Quite happy where I am.
Hey Randy,
Beautiful, my friend! I couldn’t have done as well, except t’was by accident! But you, Randy, have a gift for words and putting them on paper, and . . . er, cyber-paper.
Well, what can I say? You made my day! I had no idea that the newsletter would elicit such a response as this.
Excellent work!
Laurie
One inspiration deserves another Laurie! I also note that Rita liked it too. All the best to both of you, and hopefully we can get together by that fire sooner rather than later.
Randy,
This is wonderful! You are one of a tiny number of people I’ve met (sadly, not including me) who seem really to be present. I also love your analysis of the difference between comfort and self realization, and the high, though different cost of each.
Thanks so much for sharing this.
Best,
Arthur
Thank you Arthur. I take inspiration, season and baste it over a slow fire, and then pass it on for tasting. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
LIKE!
Silvia, you told me once that you haven’t historically appreciated poetry very much, and I’m not sure if I’ve converted you or simply seduced you over to the LFM dark side. My ego says it’s the latter.
Both your memory and ego serves you correctly, Randy.
[…] This past Saturday, Mrs. LFM and I attended and participated in the Kejimkujik Story Telling Festival at Kejimkujik National Park and National Historic Site. The event was also the venue for launch of the revised second edition of Mi’kmaq Medicines – Remedies and Recollections written by our esteemed Friend, and bottomlessly effervescent fount of ethnobotanical Wisdom, Laurie Lacey. I’ve written of Laurie before in my article Medicine Man and he was the inspiration for my poem, Trails – With Dedication to Laurie Lacey. […]
But they who seek the easy ways,
Those free from strife and test,
Will come to learn all gentle paths
Don’t lead to peace and rest.
You’ve noticed 😉