One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and
began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice
—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old
tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t
stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff
fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was
terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road
full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left
their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of
clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your
own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the
world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to
save
the only life you could save.