In the long journey out of the self, <br />There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places <br />Where the shale slides dangerously <br />And the back wheels hang almost over the edge <br />At the sudden veering, the moment of turning. <br />Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones. <br />The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons, <br />Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood roaring into the narrow valley. <br />Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain, <br />Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer. <br />-- Or the path narrowing, <br />Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones, <br />The upland of alder and birchtrees, <br />Through the swamp alive with quicksand, <br />The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree, <br />The thickets darkening, <br />The ravines ugly.<br /><br />Theodore Roethke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/journey-into-the-interior/
