{"id":29289,"date":"2015-11-23T16:56:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T21:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=29289"},"modified":"2016-01-25T17:38:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T22:38:31","slug":"poem-paths-by-caleb-fisher-wirth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/poem-paths-by-caleb-fisher-wirth\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: “Paths” by Caleb Fisher-Wirth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paths\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cPaths\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I used to be so bored with my father’s walks in the woods<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And never understand why we didn’t <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

do something else instead. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My legs used <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

to hurt and <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

would become tired. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Now I take these same walks myself, tired when I start out, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

because what else is there to do?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The same straight lines, down same paths with their familiar twists and deviations,<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Like the inane television programs he is convinced I am obsessed with<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

— the same new thing every time–<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Their hackneyed tropes, their pre-scripted turns of phrase, despite it all their comfort, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

the hidden sublime <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

microseconds, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

the familiar object you may see passing by, made new for an instant <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

by some trick of <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

the light giving depth to that familiar angle, lending poise and grace to that<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Particular mundane moment. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“You have a fucked up sense of humor, you two,” I tell my parents <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When they joke in the kitchen, amidst the washing-up, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

about leaving each other over silly disagreements , about dying, about <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

the Earth’s blood starting to run cold beneath us. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And then I can’t be quiet for ten seconds before I follow up <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

with an even more gruesome one of my own.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And he says “See? You got our worst parts,” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

but I know that too, is a joke of a kind. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And those moments echo on forever, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

carried aloft by incantations, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

wound through the very threads in the tapestry. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We just have a fucked up sense of humor. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We have self-effacing traditions, we people of the sand tribes, we children of Cain, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

us white devils and herders of sheep and fishers of men. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We feel the joke is on us, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

and so when we tell it, that’s where we seek to make it land. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We walk these paths <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

because we rarely make new ones, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

and besides where else is there to go, that one cannot get to from here?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I am grown now, and so I do not ask why we are not doing something else, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

where we are going, what will it look like when I get there? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I walk these paths in the woods <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

because I cannot be the whole time in the world of men, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

its squared-off confines and buzz from electric light, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

and yet I cannot bear to part from it for too long. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I walk these paths because my legs need to travel, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

because the spring peepers are out this evening and I have problems and work and obligations, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

but my mind needs to think these thoughts <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

as if it has no inkling <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

of the shape of the thought before it thinks it. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I am tired when I set out and grow less tired as I travel. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I know the path’s shape as I left it last time. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t know when I may return, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

but assume always that I will, and that something will have changed, <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

too small for me to notice through the veil of seeing what I have seen before.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cPaths\u201d I used to be so bored with my father’s walks in the woods And never understand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":29294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[7194,4782],"class_list":["post-29289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-writing","tag-caleb-fisher-wirth","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/paths_FEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}