“Everyone you meet knows something you don’t know but need to know” –C.G. Jung

Journeys

Every conversation is a quest two people enter
from opposite  directions to converge at its center.
The first part of the journey commences with their greeting—
an intricate endeavor completed with first meeting.

With each new associate, we visit a new land.
With each conversation, our horizons expand
into lands exotic, tragic or entertaining.
Perhaps enemy territory—often with no training.

Do we take umbrage with their words or enter, unprotesting,
the world that they offer—experimenting, testing
new mental mountains, jungles where vivid birds might call,
beckoning us onwards, or do we meet a wall

that offers us no access—sealed up, rigid, cold—
closed to all explorers, nearly obscured with mold?
What journeys do we offer ourselves to those we meet?
Do we offer easy access or promise sure defeat?

Life was designed for journeying. Daily, new vacations.
Some conversations novels and others mere quotations.
Even that experience you wouldn’t choose again
is just another whistle stop on life’s commuter train.

For SOCS the prompt is “A favorite saying.”