My inner maze has blocked both ways;
I am cabin-fevered with sameness.
Myth would have it the goddess
is sitting cross-legged at my threshold.
If I am to dislodge her,
I need to loosen, undo, untie
fling open winter-shut doors and windows,
let in fresh air and sunlight.
But my courage and the goddess
have developed an inverse
symbiosis. I can have one
or the other, but not both at once.
Life is made up of conditional clauses:
if . . . , then . . . ,
especially the subjunctive,
if I had . . . , or worse,
if only I had . . . .
I've been examining
the road map of my life,
seeing how little input I've had.
A slight, unplanned change of direction
and everything is different:
places, friends, activities.
Its like being a character
in a novel by someone else.
There will be an ending,
but I have no way of knowing
what form the ending will take.
I am insignificant,
blown by the whims of chance.
Yet, on one occasion
I was farewelling Paul
and he shared his gratitude:
“Out of all the possibilities
of space and time, we're here,
together, on this Melbourne station.”
The world expanded under my feet.
