How to Proceed

We are just starting out.
Blindly, we follow Hope, our single-minded
guide who urges us toward the vast blue
horizon of the future. A lack of timidity
is one of Hope's finest traits —
and one of its worst. Hope's advice
often seems implausible. Hope's voice
can be garbled — an inconsistent signal
from an overseas station. Though
we grope through a minefield of choices,
life must be lived in the forward mode.

Midway through our journey,
we notice a fellow traveler at the pathside.
He has tasted more of the world than we have.
Hope flutters all around him, but he seems
not to hear. He appears to have paused for a backward
look, trying to make sense of where he's been:
the scenery and tunnels, the switchbacks
and border situations. Maybe he's glimpsed
the Void, known despair. By now he's developed
theories about his existence, but its ultimate
meaning is still down the road. Is he pondering
how he'll one day be remembered, his reputation
irrevocable in the minds of all who knew him?
He knows life can only be understood retrospectively.

R. A. Allen's poetry has appeared in the New York Quarterly, RHINO, The Penn Review, London Grip, B O D Y, Alba, Orbis Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has nominations for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Net 2020. His fiction has been published in The Literary Review, The Barcelona Review, PANK, The Los Angeles Review, and Best American Mystery Stories 2010, among others. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, a river city of light and sound. More at https://nyq.org/poets/poet/raallen.