Odin Roark - Paths

Paths

And should you walk…

Upon charred earth
what might you feel
your bare feet
now scarred
with callouses of time

Today

Not unlike other days
affords trails well trodden
where hidden playgrounds of youth
are but ash and cinder
atop buried promises
gilded routes once trusted

Looking skyward

Still standing
guide signs point in all directions
their posts of charred insistence
like paternal obstinance
refusing to admit folly
even as their gathered Intel
from doctors Spock and Watson
now flutter as yellowed pages
forever distant

For what prepares innocence

This capacity to absorb
trusting authority
whose surety of agendas
some conscious
some unabated primal instincts
often serves with duplicity’s
velvet tongue

Still

The Paths
like aged depressions
upon the wrinkled face of history
outlive
outlast
stretching
beyond our perspective
beyond civilization’s struggle

Even as the innate impulse
to survive any and all storms
drives man into Nature’s forest of density
one’s tangled foliage of belief
remains destined to confront
designed weed and vine
without which
survival is but a word

Please

Cries the waif
hidden beneath its meager armor
find me but a grassy field
where blistered soul and feet
might rest
where mirages
cease to exist

Through swirling dust
acrid air
fire lit skies
understanding hands reach out
Patience bows
shouldering winds
without effort
pointing with gentle fingers
toward the horizon
guiding eyes
to the next path

Odin Roark

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/paths-25/