What’s a metaphor?
An innocent enough question,
but this is a practical poetry course.
They’ve sent me up here
on a solitary hike across the moors
with strict instructions: I must
keep to the path and not turn back.
Following me is an old friend,
another aspiring poet on the course.
Every time I stop, so does he.
I can’t go back to join him,
so we proceed along the path
at some distance from each other.
Now in front of me another man
is approaching on the same path.
A stranger, tall, dressed in black,
looking decidedly dodgy.
But one thing is certain: before long
we will meet face to face.
This is a mystery Jonathan. Maybe the walk is a metaphor for writing a p[oem, and your friend, on the same course is using the same metaphor. Maybe the man in black that you have to face is yourself struggling to find a metaphor.