The Road to Somewhere

 

 

I made a small gesture

by paying the ten cent toll

on the trip that all my learning

prepared me for though

I didn’t know it at the time.

 

The small entry point to Canada

welcomed me to the rest of my life

though all I saw was a stop along the way.

 

The couple in the front seat

had picked my up at a

homeless shelter in a church

where an earlier ride had dropped

me off after giving me a ride

in the hardest rain of my life.

 

I could tell he didn’t want to

take me in but felt too guilty

not to as I knocked on his window

in a rain so hard he had

to stop on the freeway.

 

The kind people in the church he took

me to warmed up the put away meal

and found me a ride to Canada with

a kindness that shrouded me in love.

 

It was a sunny morning as we passed through

the border post and further down the road.

It wasn’t until recently I realized that maybe

someone else or maybe me on a different day

would have given up and taken a bus back home

on that first day that I left my old life behind.

 

I didn’t know life without making plans.

I didn’t know each day can be its own story.

 

Perhaps the biggest lesson in all my

studies and talking with buds

was to forget everything

and start each day as if

I didn’t know anything.