I said to my daughter, This time
let’s go without the map.
Never before did it occur to me
it might be more fun to be lost.
There were paths through tall dry stalks,
yes, but perhaps they were more—
an intimate landscape inviting me
again and again to lose myself now,
to lose myself now. It is harder to do
that it seems. The rustle of dry leaves,
the scent of earth, the blue sky overhead
like true north. But lost, I kept finding,
and found, I kept losing, and all
the while I kept laughing, oh, the joy
of putting one foot in front of the other,
the joy in not knowing which way
the path might turn next.