Lost

The path across the quaking bog

lies not quite where the others said.

(The seaman casts his thought ahead,

but sandbanks shift under the fog

giving the lie to chart and log.)

We must be careful where we tread:

the path across the quaking bog

lies not quite where the others said.

Watery mud-holes suck and clog

and to our vision’s limit spread

flat as the sea, and sea-like fed

on hopes that sought (but found the quag)

the path across the quaking bog.