The New Direction

Painting by Jim Strong

The New Direction


This vanishing old road,
through hail-like dust storm,
it stings and scratches,
stuffy, I cannot breathe.

Here once walked my ancestors,
I was told by the old ones;
one can dig at the very spot
and find forgotten implements.

Wasting no time I urged on,
where I stop I knew not;
startled, I listened to the wind--
it whistled, screamed, cried,
"You! Go back, not this path!"

Then I recalled this trail,
swept away by the north wind;
it wasn't for me to follow,
the trail of the Long Walk.

Deciding between two cultures,
I gave a second thought;
reluctantly, I took the new one,
the paved rainbow highway.
I had found a new direction.

Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell