The long road of life

How little I know as a child

How long this road I tread would be

Never once did I ever imagine

That I would stand so tall

And look down on little ones

So dear to me today.

 

This road of my life

Has been filled with

Many holes, many ditches

Many cracks and many faults

All of which

I have learned to avoid, walk round,

Fall into, trip over

To make me the woman

That I am now.

No one else has walked

This very same road

But I, and I alone

 

As a child, with eyes young and wild

Would I have trodden the same path,

If I had known what lay ahead with every step,

Knowing that one day

I would arrive

Right here,

With still many miles

Of my road to go?

 

My feet have never grown tired

And my head and heart, not weary

Because in my mind’s eye

My road will come to no end

Until I stop walking round those ditches,

Stepping over the faults

And avoiding the cracks

That lay before me

 

I had not realised

That unless I face these obstacles

And not walk with

Open blind eyes

This long road of life

Will get no shorter

But the potholes will

Become deeper.

Sx

(20^th February 1990)