Who Will Show Me the Way?

Who will show me the way 
when all these many roads have run their course
and the sky is dark 
with only a half-moon 
and an iPhone
to light my way? 

When everyone I’ve met is the same
as everyone you’ve met
and everyone they’ve met
has hired a coach who hired a coach
to help him find a coach 
to help him find the way;

and everyone I’ve paid to guide me 
has left me with an empty wallet 
and a stack of books; 
and a pile of GI Joes and rollerblades
and band tees and studded white belts 
and CD players and iPods
and laptops and phones 
and old sweaters that once were new 
and old shoes that once were new 
and a fantasy football app;
and three diplomas, twenty-five years,
buried in a box beneath the bed
that I had delivered from Wayfair? 

I know what would happen 
if I were to go online 
and put my question to the multitudes. 
They would say:
There’s nowhere else to go
it’s just these roads
but you can take them to a grand old party
if you know how to use them. 

Or they would say:
You’ve got to check out so-and-so;
and give me another book
or another podcast
or another “studies have shown.” 

Would that I’d been born in another age
where the Sage bore forth his teaching in fleshly form
and I could write another poem
that went like this:

Who will show me the way 
when all these many roads have run out
and the sky is dark 
with only a half-moon 
to light my way? 

When all the men I’ve paid to guide me 
have left my cart broken, my axle bent, 
my rations half depleted?

I know what will happen if I go to the village
and put my question to the townsfolk there.
They will point to other men
just like the ones I’ve met, 
men with hungry mouths and darting eyes
whose own carts have bent or broken axles. 

Or they will say:
Come, why go anywhere? 
For the moon is waxing
and will soon be full
and the festival is nigh. 

But I go to the village anyway,
for where else can I go? 
And there it happens:
I am met by a radiant woman
a former mother
standing under the half-moon
who looks me straight in the eye,
and says,
The ascetic Gotama has come.