Hansel

The forest is dark, dank, humus-perfumed. 

Each footfall cushioned by the spongy floor of

needles-becoming-soil that betrays no clear

path.  You lift your foot and the print is swallowed

up, concealed.  You may as well be traversing

a bog or a swamp.  Has the name of your

destination escaped you, ingested by your

wandering thoughts?  Are you scurrying

from the oven? What happened to Gretel?  Birds

chatter and sing, in greys and browns they

blend into the dark canopy overhead.  You

cannot see them, but they must be there,

like the path you despair to follow, right?

In your pocket, not breadcrumbs, but a stale,

oaty granola bar.  Too hard to bite, too stiff

to break, small chunks rub off, burnishing

the bar that you dare not eat.  Not yet, anyway.

On the log where you pause, gauging

your progress, red ants commute back

and forth, with their miniature groceries, bags

of take-out sally forth, insect provisions,

each with more prudence than you possess.

How is it we decide we are lost?

Slowly, with piercing questions of identity and

self-flagellation, perhaps.  Why

pay attention now, when before you were too

caught up in the intricacies of moss,

say, or hunting for chanterelles.  (Do you

realize what they’re worth?)  Gingerly,

stupidly, you begin to leave your trace, those

crumbs from your pocket.  What is it

you are marking?  Already been down this

path?  You persist, remembering a gripping

story about one who didn’t give up, in whose

tale, the hero was played by that young

what’s-his-name with his forty-eight

hour shadow of a beard.  Later, when you

stumble upon your own breadcrumbs again,

you realize, ah, yes, it’s not a fairy tale, but

some kind of sick joke:  that’s how you’ve

been typecast.  Bumbling, anxious, searching

for grace, you stew, how will this end? 

Would you recognize the hero of your own story?