The place we left was not the same
when we returned, though little had changed.
Hills rose above woods thick with game,
but the roads looked somehow rearranged.
Had we returned? Despite what changed
in those years after we departed,
the roads could not have rearranged.
Had we been lost before we started?
In those years since we first departed,
at least we knew we didn’t know.
If we’d been lost before we started,
whose tracks did we take through fresh snow?
Now we don’t know what we don’t know,
not even if we’ve lived our lives.
No one can read tracks in old snow.
Should we trust paths the wind contrives?
New leaves will soon erase our lives
with summer’s flush and autumn’s flame.
We’ll take what paths the wind contrives
and leave this place still much the same.