Terry Trowbridge | On the Edge of Ethos

The main concern is of being good rather than simply doing good.
-D’Arcy Rheault, Anishinaabe Mino-Bimaadiziwin, p. 138

If “doing good” is the simple part,
then “being good” is labyrinthine.
I can only be as good for as far as I can see.
How do I know what my experience can do
when I step over the horizon?
When I stand there, on the unseen part of my path,
what will my footprints trace –
after all, not only will I see my footprints toes-first,
but I will see the back of every tree, person, road sign,
that I passed along the way.

I have read a lot of Plato:
The unexamined life is not worth living.
If I understand D’Arcy Rheault’s book,
understanding my life and living my life are two different things;
not that Socrates is wrong, but that philosophy is a halfway point,
and choices can be made either by reasoning,
or by choosing the right tool at the right time.

I guess when I have dilemmas, I start to walk in different directions.
When I cross the horizon and look back,
when my dilemmas look like a well-considered path,
and more life grows in my footprints than I squished down,
I will have a good answer for my anxieties.

I just can’t see this happening with every trail.
I am not good at traditions, tools.
I used to have so many friends!
And now my trail is lonesome.

I preferred the time when I could look back at my trail,
and by recognizing the footprints next to mine,
use those toes to decide whether I was being good.
So many of my friends were good,
and so many of them drifted down other paths,
while I paused to read the signs aloud,
sometimes too loudly, lingering too long.

Terry Trowbridge: Pushcart Prize nominee, researcher & farmer Terry Trowbridge’s poems are inPennsylvania Literary Journal, MasticadoresUSA, Poetry Pacific, Carousel, Lascaux Review, Carmina, untethered, Progenitor, Miracle Monocle, Orbis, Pinhole, Big Windows, Muleskinner, Brittle Star, MathematicalIntelligencer, Journal of HumanisticMathematics, New Note, Hearth and Coffin, Beatnik Cowboy, Delta Poetry Review, Stick Figure, miniMAG, and 100+ more. His lit crit is in BeZine, Erato, Amsterdam Review, Ariel, British Columbia Review, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Episteme, StudiesinSocialJustice, Rampike, Seeds, and The/t3mz/Review.  His Erdös number is 5. Terry is grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for his first writing grant.