The Second Path

I took the second path

Dipped in moss, shouldered in fern

Footsteps shuffled under leaves, out of sight.

It was here, not the first way,

where I learned to run

to uncommon words and patterns

through what I then assumed

to be the deepest marsh.

I craved the tigers of my past

learned to find new dangers from the grazing doe,

fresh shadows from the fleeting adder.

In common ivy and lean conifer

I reconstruct the tortured jungles

from the first days

and remind myself why

I did not return that way.