Your bridges engulfed in flames
and in panic, you try to run back across,
thinking your life was safer, maybe
even better while still on the other side.
Disaster! The bridge crashes into the river
and you fall to your knees, wailing:
you cannot go back; are afraid to move
onto face unknown challenges that lie ahead
in the unexplored country.

As you watch the mighty river
wash away remnants of your bridge,
a spirit appears in the smoky air,
beckoning you to accept the inevitable.
"You can never relive the past:
why be afraid to let your bridges burn?
The road of life has no round trip fare:
all your paths are but one-way streets."

Learn to rejoice at the end of each road,
at the crossing of each stream and river;
laugh at the fall of burning bridges!
Why should you care about so-called
wisdom which says,
"'Don't burn your bridges?"
If I can teach anything at all,
it's that no life is possible
without burning bridges!
Every experience forges a new link
in the chain of life,
moving ever forward towards
man's final destiny:
there can never be a turning back
once you begin your walk in Earth's domain.

Submitted by WindWalker, Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada