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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Friday, August 24, 2012

Forgotten Roads

Big Sky Road by Ella Wilson

You love to walk the forgotten roads,
the ones with weedy, overgrown shoulders
and missing road signs,
orphaned roads
that let you turn down the volume
on the clatter and chatter,
 feel the earth under your feet
and watch cloud shapes coalesce above.

Forgotten roads
let you take time
to remember
your name.
They don't hurry you
to get anywhere;
they honor you
right where you are.

Even as the milky clouds 
grow ashen and somber,
you walk.
You walk 
as raindrops tease,
then course down in a cavalry of wet.

In the petrichor
you smell the birth of another chance
and feel yourself
cleansed of artifice,
shining like a new penny
on the asphalt.




11 comments:

Ella said...

I love this poem~ How you defined it and the imagery that kept us going on!
I love these lines:
" Even as the milky clouds
grow ashen and somber,
you walk.
You walk
as raindrops tease,
then course down in a cavalry of wet."
I loved how you tied in a lesson and offered us a fresh start :D

Lolamouse said...

Thank you Ella! Your pictures were so cool and really got my imagination going! I'm reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance again right now, and this picture and the book metamorphosed into the poem!

JustRex said...

Mmmm....
I like it.
Love it, in fact.
Makes me want to go for a walk.
Thank you.

Kerry O'Connor said...

Forgotten roads
let you take time
to remember
your name....

I love this idea - too often we forget to take time to know ourselves.

Sherry Blue Sky said...

Lolamouse, this is my favorite response to the prompt. I LOVE it! I love those weedy overgrown forgotten roads.........and the way the walker is "cleansed of artifice".........absolutely wonderful writing! Wow.

Helen said...

.. walking the forgotten roads ~ you and I have that in common!! Lovely poem.

Susan said...

This poem hypnotized me gradually just like a behavior modification session, and I say yes! That's right! Among my pre-digitalized pictures are many of the forgotten roads. Thank you!

Grace said...

I like what you did with the prompt ~ Forgotten roads to finding another birth or chance to shine like a new penny on the road ~

Sreeja said...

the opening lines are really catchy...this has got a magical touch to .......

Mimi Foxmorton said...

Beautiful words......
Beautiful art...........

*hugs*

Mary B. Mansfield said...

Gorgeous imagery in this. Just wonderfully done!