A Road is Taken
I am on the path
I have never left the path
Yet, it is not what it was —
Somewhere, I have missed a clause
Lips have twisted
Vision misted
Sky above rips tear by tear
And mud become the daily here
Every page, I fear.
When did life become so slick?
Weary feet now slide
Where once they walked the miles
And every annum was a stride
Should I blame
Is it the same
The sloping of a pride?
The juicing of a pleasure plied?
(Or something else inside?)
Another explanation —
Some time ago, the tide
Crept up the sides. And all the worlds
That I once built, crumbled away
And littered every prior step
With memories to tread.
And, between their crunching
And the endless muddy lunching
I could barely a hear a thing
So what tune could I follow?
What song might I sing?
Every note that passed these lips
Rang hollow; I could no longer tell
The harmony; that sweetling bell
Was lost to me. At times I fell
And could not get back up again.
And later–
And then–
The water rose and ran and roared
And in the tide, I soared
But only for a breath.
The currents flow, the sea will crest
She grants me soft a bubbled rest
But does not take me far
From the treading of it all.
In other times, the sky would clear
And sunlight warm shine on me here
To bake away the waves
And form the path again in clay
And lend me torch to hold at bay
The shadow of the night;
The beauty of a flicker light
That dances in a dream.
Promethean, I shared it
To beings that could bear it —
And should their nature be the shade
Darker flames for them I made.
Narcissisean, I held it
To prove a heart ungelded
To scorch the dirt, so I might glance
And see myself a man.
Finally, Sisyphean,
With every breath, the flame diminished;
Finished, it would breathe again.
A torch will ember, fade to dust
But soon another one is given
Thus, the shadow takes its due
And, the brightness takes it too.
So the flicker stretches on
But never nearly far enough
To burn away the blur —
To bleed the blackness from the pure
Or warn me come the hurt.
To slow me when I need the slowing
(Tell me where I should be going!)
Never knowing where the path
Will take me, never knowing if the tide
Will slake me, or if soon the flame
Will leave me, truly, in the dark.
I can only follow spark
And hope that it might lead me
Where I need to be.
And pray that it might leave me
Somewhere close to where I dream.
