Heading out, by Philip Booth

Chaconne, from Partita in D minor for solo violin (BWV 1004) by Johann Sebastian Bach
Transcribed for piano by Ferruccio Busoni 
With Hélène Grimau

Beyond here there's no map.
How you get there is where
you'll arrive; how, dawn by
dawn, you can see your way
clear: in ponds, sky, just as
woods you walk through give
to fields. And rivers: beyond
all burning, you'll cross on bridges
you've long lugged with you.
Whatever your route, go lightly,
toward light. Once you give away
all save necessity, all's
mostly well: what you used to
believe you owned is nothing,
nothing beside how you've come
to feel. You've no need now
to give in or give out: the way
you're going your body seems
willing. Slowly as it may
otherwise tell you, whatever
it comes to you're bound to know.


poem from Poetry magazine, April 1989
With gratitude for a wonder-full year behind and a new one ahead.