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Trusted Snow Routes

All busses are time machines.

Most take you to your future
– or to be more precise, they
get you to your present sooner.

But a select few can take you
to your past; a portal to a
magical era not too long
ago when books existed.

The right connection can
transcend barriers, linking you
to decades ago when you dozed,

commuting, curled within the arms
of the love of your life, before
things fell apart, or if you ride

to the end of the line, you find

your beginning at the local
community college, planning
what to be when you grew up, not

recognizing the tempered
greying reflection of what you’ve
become. Walk among the ghosts, but

you cannot interact to tell
your younger self when to be still,

patient, like a Zen monk; and when
to attack your barely sketched fate
with zeal, unbridled aggression;

some enchanted barriers are
not so easily breached, even
when using our trusted snow routes.
***

Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 24 prompt: “write a poem that, like ‘Dictionary Illustrations,’ is inspired by a reference book. Locate a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day. Maybe a strange word will catch your eye, or perhaps the mishmash of information will provide you with the germ of a poem.”

This was almost an elegy about me not being able to find a single book – let alone a book of reference – at my current workplace (to be fair, my entire department is packing to move to a new floor, so most books are packed). Thankfully, I found a bus route booklet and flipped it open to a route I never rode on, but somehow it connected my present with my past and my distant past.

Yes, I’m behind a day. I mentioned writer’s fatigue in an earlier post, but that’s not what happened this time. I just have an awful lot happening in my life all at once. Don’t worry; I’ll catch up this weekend.