Mary Eastwood Knevels

WHO has gone before me, padding down the firm white sand?

Who has set first foot on the virginal soil?

All around is the delicate lacing of branches:

Leaf fits leaf, and vine links itself to vine;

The moss fringes the boughs on the edges of silence.

How shall I enter the stillness that the wind fears?

Who shall follow me into the tranquil gray of the unnoted pines,

Or watch me, when I go past the notched oak bushes?

Who shall wonder when the path circling the tiny grove

Marches to the edge of the world, or dies in a moss cushion?

Who shall follow me when I have made a path,

And where shall I dare to make one?

He who makes a path plunges a sword into the Eternal.

What is your will, doubter, hesitator?

Will you not do what others have done?

Be fearless, penetrate—there will be many to follow;

And, if not, the end of the path is silence.