To Find Things Out

You have to start walking.
You pick the direction
And pretend you can walk.

The woods are never deep,
Just horizontally.
The biggest risk you take

Is that what you will find
Will be more of the same.
Correction. That’s not risk,

That’s a solemn promise.
The reward, possibly,
Is that you will become

Increasingly subtle
In the ways of sameness—
Of likeness, difference,

And how to recognize
Identical patches
As nonidentical

And changes as whispers
You’re going in circles.
Wandering that finds out

By assaying the woods
Without surveying them
Employs a discipline

That is foolish and fails
Often—could get you killed—
But still a discipline.