One Trail Is Better Blazed

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One Trail is Better Blazed

 'Will it leave me the free play of Mind? I must insist on that, you know.'*

 What greater degradation to the seeking intellect 
than mindless sheepery, gnawing in the beaten path 
of former feet, nose down to catch the scent
of predetermined certainty? A posture quite pathetic, 
really, this adamant withholding of a probing glance

from side to side, refusal to investigate, 
if only momentarily, what nearby fields 
may offer. Think, such hearty nourishment,
and lying well available (and fresh) for those who dare
to look! Content instead to slop the remnants

of regurgitated grass from yesterday—the pasture
where the river prates dogmatically, the bushes
shading lazy trout in afternoon assembly— 
one surely must, in time, begin to hope that there 
is more beyond the far horizon’s hill, must feel

the ever-nagging pull to navigate wherever
slopes are fresh. How liberating, feasting 
grass untouched, untrodden by a multitude of hooves!
And this would surely be the case—undoubtedly—
if there were no such thing as prowling wolves.  


  * the apostate Bishop in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce

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