The moonlight trails I walk now fade behind me...
So many paths I've never trod before.
Still, they seem to greet me as old friends,
and without them I'd be a lonely man.

Empty spaces that never felt a foot-fall,
But this I seek for these lonely lands.
No patch of green or blue of pond to draw an eye,
and I welcome the solitude in which to wander.

In daylight, shadow comes from scrub brush canopies,
and coffee in the evening is the daily prayer.
Dead sleep from noontime heat is all the rest I need,
and the night time breezes cool the memories again.

Old memories that should have stayed in my past...
and walls as large as fear still hold me in.
Avoiding human contact, and existing in my prison,
becoming one more fugitive not wanted anywhere.

So on I trod, to lose the feelings that vex me.
To take the sharp and twisting turns to shake them loose.
But nothing makes this curse of mine stay put,
and tonight I'll wander over one more fading trail.

John Fox  7/01

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