Interlude, a Relapse, Coming to Know

You could be forgiven for wanting a return to unknowing
like the silky seeds that cleave to the split pod,
fearful of the four directions. For so long you’ve been carried
from what you have always known to what’s beyond
the edge of the trees, where the gravel road tapers
into a footpath, and though you haven’t trekked there
yourself, others have marked the way with spraypaint
and footprints in the softened ground.
You’ve roamed these hills for years without seeing
the perimeter, the smudged faces below the cliffs.
In the morning, you shake dead flies from the screen door.
Freight trains like a long murmur in your ear,
and birds on the sidelines don’t ask for your attention.
Behind your eyelids their flight paths consolidate.