Finding Your Way Poem by Gregory Wm. Gunn

A smooth, facile puma gait
through the subterfuge
of the forest at nightfall;
you impulsively slink
to slake your appetite.

Overhead: a tenuous skin,
strata of air and vapour
where the moon is perched
Laodicean as a boulder.

Propelled by powerful strides,
you advance swiftly, blazenly,
adversity's weight never taxing
your fiesty determined effort;
you challenge the law-makers
of the jungle, you add new words
and phrases to your vocabulary:

Calvinism, Hobson's choice,
prelapsarian, 'ad astra per aspera',
and 'imprimatur'.




06/08/08
GWG