A Look Back into My Past

The Year of Seeing Things More Clearly

Some took other roads

Swam other rivers,

But I traveled through

The steeply-rising gap

Toward uncertain destination.

Seemingly-easier paths

Led to dead ends and quicksand.

A year chronicled in a journal

And discarded a year later

Before moving to Virginia.

A twelvemonth spent

Between phases of my life

Between two institutions,

Missing one, anticipating the other

Between two languages

Which never has changed.

On Blue Marsh Lake

No wind in the sails

From the cloudy sky,

Trusting two sisters,

Resplendent in youth

And vitality, I realize

That trusting at times

Is the best decision

As they steer to shore.

That memory crystalized

Over ensuing decades

And recalled during visits;

Bringing joy when

Recollected so much later.

From that shore seeing

So much so clearly

Realizing the year

Focused who I was

And who I was to be.

Arthur Turfa, Copyright 2015