Per aspera ad astra, I whisper to the rearview mirror as the road lifts me out of New Brunswick

past trees that remember more of me than I will admit or the river holds my older names without asking me to stay

boxes shift softly like unfinished thoughts in the back seat as I am not closing a chapter
I am setting down the entire book; for Tabula rasa waits somewhere west of here not empty, but open in a way that feels almost euphoric

I carry the weight of winters that did not break me and the quiet knowledge of the ones that almost did

every mile redraws the borders of who I have been the sky widens into something I cannot measure and I let it

there is a moment when leaving becomes arrival though nothing looks like home yet
fields replace forests horizons refuse to end

I begin to understand space as permission
Per aspera ad astra becomes less of a promise
and more of a record of survival written in motion as Tabula rasa is not forgetting

it is choosing what deserves to remain

Thank you for your picture to inspire poetry