Scrub Oak Gate

If we were to name one thought,
Just a few words to sum up
The way your own thoughts haunt you,
We’d phrase it a bit like this—

What should I try to do now?
You can move us and swap us,
And add your own myth to taste,
But your core will still swirl there,

Some set of us that float through
Your head. How then shall I live?
You want to know what to do,
Now, and then now, and then next.

You, small knot in all the smoke
That curls from your thoughts as us,
Life as a quest, and your soul
As that which must choose to do.

One day you will leave the gate,
And the home you were will fall.
You were the gate, and the smoke,
And the walls, and can’t haunt back.