Everything Leads To

Dark, cold, foggy: we leave at 8 a.m.
Early on, we pass a field of young calves
housed in small, stark feeding pens, separate
from their mothers, forced to stand on cement.
Then later on, a “free” pilgrim fruit stall,
funded by donations, offers repose.
The sun shows. We continue our ascent—

thinking how you follow a decision
on tantalizing trails of transgressions,
more like a web of concentric circles,
shrinking towards a center point where guilt waits
to consume; OR a straight, obvious path,
plain, simple, unadorned, that brings you
to pearly gates or chosen heathen fates.