Hikers
It’s always best to walk behind
other hikers on the trail, or follow
tracks into thick forest, where narrow
crooks and blinds distract the eye
so the moment’s stride is all you know
and the woods conceal the coming rise-
that sheer grade, like a sleepless night,
always close to ending. But what if it showed-
if we could picture the paths of our life
scrambling over scree, up the treeless meadows
and the balding ridge, until the body is slowed
by thin air and age, and draws near the divide?
Much better for some to come behind
through the blind, dense forest, with heads bowed.
- Steven Heighton, The Ecstasy of Sceptics
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