WAYPOINTS

for Elizabeth Bishop

Comes a time, traveller, to rest your bones

by the roadside, to stretch out in a flowered

ditch, catch your breath and watch the patterned

play of sunlight and shadow on the membranes

of your eyelids, a few minutes or an hour

if needed. Comes a time at a trivial

junction to pause and reconnoitre,

reconsider flight plans and waypoints, wait

for someone with a wagon to pass by

and offer you a ride wherever it is

they're going. Comes a time when the sky

's dyed rose and darkening, to find a roof

or some other form of warmth and shelter

that might, on waking, be mistaken for a home.