Something About Everything

By Doug Newcomb

When I was a boy, everything around me was a mystery.

I assumed that as I grew, I would understand more.

But then I did grow, and the sense that all it made to me was much less than I expected.

So much less that I waited, disappointed, for experience to guide me.

I learned to accept little and expect less, but tried to feel it all

until time layered so much daydreaming over retching and reverie upon heaving that

experience finally taught me I should be hopeful – grateful, even –

to unlearn all that I might know, so that I might see the world as a new thing, each day.

I have doubts about this.

About everything, I have doubts,

and I don’t think the world cares much for another mystery.

The world, much like me, wants easy answers,

but easy answers are hard to find, let alone the true ones,

and are increasingly difficult to hold on to once found.

I don’t know what to think about the truth anymore, and my doubts now are that I’ll ever find a

solution for anything, but

there might be a place ahead where I can see that a foot fell before mine. Where another fool,

like me, has travelled, blind and dumb and aimless.

There’s no footprint heading back, so there is hope,

and while I remain unwise and undeserving,

I pray to only find a path.

Douglas Newcomb grew up in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and has lived in Sonoma County since 1999. His interests and creative pursuits vary widely, but writing has long been a favorite method of understanding and exploring his experience in the world.