Everything is
achieved through failure,
every destination
worth reaching
arrived at in retreat.
This poet's
tongue is chipped sharp
and purposed like
a flint arrow head
launched
hopefully towards his prey
only because he
botched the axe
he was originally
trying to make,
and found a
fragment he could rescue.
The quarry he
eventually provides
falls under the
edge of his blade
only after what
he was first pursuing
has escaped, and
he turns his attention
elsewhere. And
yet
he witnesses the
sunset
without sensing
defeat, heading home
along the
shoreline at the end of the day,
and as the tide
recedes once more
after its most recent advance into the bay,
on the shingle
that is revealed by its retreat,
he finds below
high tide, a gem stone
washed there by
chance, and it will adorn
his wife's
throat, and his children will eat.
To live is to
retreat without regret.
The wind will
take our arrow where it may.
If we don't
accept its loss with grace we make sharp
an arrow that will
pierce our heart some other day.
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