BEST LAID PLANS

 BEST LAID PLANS 

Richard Banks

 

It should not have happened in this way

He never meant to go astray

 

The map he had that showed the trail

to village near, down hill to vale,

 

did not! at least that’s what he thought,

or could it be he was at fault.

 

Its lines and signs he misconceived

and after dusk could not be see’d

 

He wandered lost from field through wood,

to marshy heath but to no good.

 

His walking tour had gone all wrong,

a journey short had stretched to long.

 

Caught in brambles, fell into burn,

from bad to worse at every turn.

 

Then dawn did break and with the light

he found himself within plain sight

 

of village he had set-out from.

The people there who thought him gone,

 

did wonder at his sorry state.

Whatever could have been his fate,

 

his muddied boots, his coat all torn

and on his face a look, careworn.

 

What doeth here they now did think

as he on bench did weary sink

 

and not to rise ’til bus came by

to take him where his feet had tried.

Copyright Richard Banks