The Known Scatter Away

They stand on the pointy end of compass arrows, friends and strangers scattering, flickering now like fireflies in a jar someone else is carrying yet further away. The young are born on the far side of the moon where nobody looks for the earth. Of course the dead have left, but you still have their business cards, debts. owed to you or to them not money, but hand-me-down memories those 'post-its' once pinned to the hope of a shared journey. You suddenly know you are alone, the only fish in a shrinking pond; rooted now by the very long roads that brought you here. Will you follow the calling winds, will you backpack up to another peak that goes nowhere? Your are a veteran of foreign engagements, time has so slowly placed your heart in a box of pressed flowers, a box muffled by plush and velveteen one as large as any coffin its four walls marked 'Do not open until the last train leaves forever.'