Beginnings

I have begun at the beginning
and begun again,
though I did not realize it
until the trees seemed strangely familiar;
but it always feels that the air
is somehow different.

I always wonder who ends at the ending,
how many of us
find the true closure of a whole lifetime;
I always imagined I’d go out
in the middle of a sentence,
never to realize
that my destiny was only to be half baked.

I look around now,
and think if I’ve been here before;
I know I get preoccupied;
busy being born, and busy dying,
until I average out —
but running in place
will give you strong legs, isn’t it so?

I cannot believe
that I ever thought it would go to naught,
all that happens to everyone:
it seems so clear
that there is a purpose, for this, for that,
even if, in construing what it might be,
I make foolish leaps of faith,
to start again, from the beginning.