The Journey

by Trudy Osteen Crow

Sometimes,
I regret the road not taken.

It's gentle bends and curves

somehow
come to haunt my dreams

and make me wish
I could
go back to follow it all the way

rather than take that step 

into the brambles

and through dark woods 

to where I am today.

The journey would not have been so hard 

and bruises would be fewer 

but would I like the person each time
I viewed that face in the mirror?

Would my travels have been so smooth

and so unfraught with pain that 

the face I wake to see each day 

would bear another name?

The answer is one I will never know.

It is not mine to divine

so all that is left is to stay the course

and be grateful for the sun.