At the Crossroads

The only right sacrifice
in the timeless temple
is to leave
by but one

of the Thousand Thousand Ways.
It would seem a sacrilege here
to forsake
Nine Hundred Thousand
Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine
perfectly good
roads to happiness
and right living

—Nine Hundred Thousand
Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine good wives
each in her own timeline, callings,
costumes, Nine Hundred Thousand
Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine homesteads,
deathbed satisfactions—

but that is the paradox
of this faith—

to grasp at living
here in the source
of all possible lives,
keeping all doors open
is to die
blasphemous,
regretful.
To know daily the Thousand Thousand
and to leave again,
again choosing,

forsaking all but one gift
is to live
one life
given.