The Crisp Day Closing on My Hand: The Poetry of M. Travis Lane

Half Past

Half Past This is the place where the map gives out, worn in its folds, as it long has been. Your label’s thin (mother/daughter/ sister/wife) and everywhere an equal sky fills the unstable woods. Your shadow lags as if you could step out of it. What’s left? The work you thought your best, like a blazed stump in a logged pasture, can not call your footsteps to it. Half past midlife you find yourself in a rough barren where no trees or brambles block your way. There is no path. Whichever way you turn will be toward darkness. Choose. The plot of your unworded story is your own. Or have the path and you run out together, overgrown, emplaced? Will the horizon part, or a long stair come down from those clouds, mountainous, that pass and pass and never speak? Write everything. These minutes are your own. Business-arising has been paid to each according to her need (and you need nothing). No map, no compass, and no plan. There is, still, light. 54 / The Crisp Day Closing on My Hand ...