Poetry Friday : July 15, 2016.

According to my journal, it was during my sophomore year of college. I do not remember the exact occasion, but I do remember being so taken by its message that I committed “The Way” to memory. It offered focus to many issues as I desperately sought purpose and life direction at the end of my teenage years. In its lines, I saw a simplicity to life’s complex choices.

Its words continue to speak to me today.

The Way
John Oxenham

To every man there openeth a way, and ways, and a way,
And the high soul climbs the high way,
And the low soul gropes the low.
And in between, on the misty flats, the rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth a high way and a low;
And every man decideth the way his soul shall go.

John Oxenham is one of the pseudonyms used
by William Dunkerley–English journalist, novelist, and poet.

Thanks to this week’s #PoetryFriday host —  A Year of Reading