The Long Way Home From Indian River Poem by Barry Middleton

There is a distance to my home,
not half the road behind me.
Yet I sit and watch
the sun go down on Indian River.
My food and beer are done,
and still I stare at quiet water,
green ripples of sea grass,
and tailing redfish.
I could retreat the sooner,
my cooling motorcycle
waits to take me
back to my beginnings.
I might then gain familiar rest
before the darkness settles in.
Yet with sunset fading,
I hold to this encounter:
a piece of the horizon,
a portion of the sunset,
a beaker of the night.
Would I return the shorter way,
omit circuitous wandering,
an easy road I'd find,
but I must choose
the stranger route,
and unfamiliar pleasure,
solitude in afterglow,
discreet,
sequestered treasure.