Dead End

I have been walking for many a year
choosing my paths by how they appear,
as that indeed seemed like the right way to choose
as I kept feeling certain I were never to lose.

But the paths that I trodded, they all felt the same.
I preyed for a change then, and change to me came.
As winter was forced back by the softness of spring
and the trees started smiling, and the birds started sing,
I reached a new crossroad, an encouraging sight
for the roads were as different as day is from night.

One led through gardens that were treated with care,
where roses were blooming and the trees green and fair.
The birds there were singing in prettiest ways
of how this road led to happier days.

The other, however, led up to a hill
where absent was flowers, and the birds remained still.
The path was uneven, and overgrown too,
so I chose the other, that led me to you.

But as I was walking, I thought back in time
to the crossroads I encountered, and the choices of mine.
Had I been walking blindly too long?
Was the choice I made at the crossroad wrong?

It seemed so, for then, as i thought of the past
I encountered my fear, a dead end, at last.
In despair I turned and walked back the way
I had wandered so gladly the other day.

But the landscape, that once seemed so fair and bright,
Was now to be seen in another light.
What once had been clear, was now turning pale,
and what once had been blooming, now seemed to fail.
The roses that once grew together in peace
seemed now to be battling in the chilled autumn breeze
And the birds were not singing of hope anymore,
Their song now seemed hateful, though the same as before.

But eventually I reached the road to the hill
and i took it, and I am walking it still.
For the road was not what it first seemed to be,
and upon the hilltop, I could happily see,.
That the road ran through a joyful land
and then I came to understand
that though things may not seem so good at first
they might as well change, for better or worse.
I know that now, the lesson is learnt.
They will not fail twice, those who once have been burnt.