"Stepping out to meet the morning chill"

Stepping out to meet the morning chill

I donned my heavy coat.

Turning my face to the bora wind

I sallied forth to seize the day.

The path I found--'twas far from town--

Had not been clearly marked.

Where others had strayed

I had not;

Their errors lay all around.

With determined foot I moved

And covered ground,

The world stretched out before me.

I learned, I grew to understand

How men are made from men-to-be.

But walking then--and walking fast--

I felt some sense of urgency.

So out I broke into a run,

The sort that defies

The pressing nature of a setting sun.

But short I stopped for I had found

That something in me was there no longer.

I panicked; quick I searched around,

Convinced that I had faltered.

Dashing back to retrace the steps

Which my soles had trodden deeply,

I noticed things had gone unseen

Like the breezing grass and blooming trees,

That now met my gaze so keenly.

It seems for miles I had run

With my back against the way ahead,

Though of my task I had accomplished none:

I had not moved an inch

From the spot where I'd begun.

Weak and weary-- surely drowning--

Collapsed my body to the dirt.

A revelation came to me:

I know now things I cannot revert.

And lo! The day is lost to those who fail

To see the things which are overt.