Towards the beginning of my retreat, I wrote this;

 

Lost sheep

Through trees wearing ice where leaves

once were, I follow the map that

someone kindly laid for me.

Over stile that skates my boots and

into fields wiped clean, skittered

only by claws of creatures who watch

me blunder by from cover.

A hedge a road a bog a bridge a pause to

mop and catch my breath, a buzzard low in

silhouette, too-early lamb almost indivisible from

mother, who all but knits for him a jumper.

I am no-where. At least not where I

ought to be. Not mappable. No surrender to

conspiracies of cartographers.

It came to me that only when we

lose a path can we discover our own.

But these too have all been walked before.