Crossing

I
Cut clean through two tall black mountains,
A jagged metal river froths like rabies.
Raging between outcast boulders and spires
The blue-grey greatsword eternally grinding at stone.

The footpath worn through and ground in,
Etched into the cliffs over centuries,
Standing testament to humanity’s trials;
Written upon the precipice with bones.

II
My footsteps echoed over the muddy grey shale
This day, as the ashen sunrise cast
Each arduous step in a lazy silver haze,
The singing sea’s fog slipped along the slick slate

Impaling wary souls upon a bone-rattling gale.
The roar of the piercing wind lashed 
At an unseen shoreline, driving stakes 
Through shivering, shuffling, submittent wights.

III
The line crawling across the ancient path
Moved as if on a string: the last 
Step falling into the prints made
By those ahead, left for those behind.

Beckoned onward by destiny, seduced by blind faith,
We journey under frayed sheepskins and threads.
My hand, pitted and dark, digs with nails like dull spades
Into a low outcropping, preceding the fall of the Blind;

IV
The gravel pathway melted underfoot, under ragged boots
And, clinging for life, for desperate survival in vain,
Left hand fighting fiercely a losing dance with gravity
While the right reached out to be saved.

Shadows encircling but none too close, they were rooted
In the breadth of their path. None seemed impelled
To reach for anything save the light pouring forth from their grail.
Hope fleeting, I release, and what was given been repaid.

V
Never to see the sun’s golden promise on seaside fog,
The restless river races to greet another truant soul
Who dropped from the odyssey like a fruit fly born next to
An empty bowl. The silver-wreathed cemetery trees ring;

The seeds that sprout a network bloom in springtime sunrises;
A sapling oak without strong roots blows over with a light breeze.
It’s not the bitter winds of Winter that saps soul from the weak -
It’s the slow frost of existence in the lucent promise of Spring.

Copyright © Andrew Travis | Year Posted 2020

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