Road Poem

A Poem by
Robert R. Cain

The Road

Sometimes the road which led
from our house on the hill down to the river
would cover itself with valley fog so thick
you needed to know the way
without the help of frogs
drowned in the shroud of silence
asleep in the coverlet of darkness
with crickets and dry leaves.

This same road was walked often
leaning backwards to displace the centerline
of gravity which, once it captured you
could make you cover grand vistas
and almost fly against the winds.
Feet slammed into red dog or blacktop
sending shivering shattering waves
into your flailing arms and jelly legs.

No. You would fly
as high as God could let one fly
when as in youth you knew
this one moment would last forever
and wrap you in its shadows of
reoccurring joy.

I never would have thought
that after many roads and moons
this vision of me in a thin, old cotton shirt
and jeans and shoes as dark
as the night I tremble before
this vision would consume me
like a leaf that might, by chance
land on a coal-covered rooftop
of one of the mill town houses I can also see
etched out there in the opaque luminosity
of this wondrous joy.

I would stop to admire the vision
of a spider web, spun on drops of dew
as large as the blackberries
which grin the foliage by this
magnificent road.

And I know that somehow
down there far below
river
and pause
before entering its world
just as I sometimes,
when taken to dreams,
arise from the depths
and enter ours.

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