Fortress

Sometimes you fail for something you have known. Some little island in your heart, Some land you've sown. (Acres bright with thought weeded of ghosts.) Sometimes you fail, succeding most.

"Run back, run back, run back," you never do. Direction has no shape it leaves no clue — a ledge, perhaps, in crags plumed by the sea? The cradle of the wind? The night's star-wizadry? A boy upon a hill . . . red leaves . . . curled by the door like cardinal wings, without a sky to soar?

Your heart is but a fortress you have left. "Come back, come back," it cries "Come to your own." The enterprise is yours you win alone.