The Old Road

Ragged edge of road, framed in fray and grasses gold. Held in drunken course by bits of broken stays from fences split. Gathered there, around each post, lays lagging wind and moonlight’s ghost.

She wanders o’er the silent lea disturbed to find her way, where once she knew an arrowed path between the barn and forest’s lath, now stumbles towards the wood, in sway.

A silvered grey and fallen barn counts her steps in jest, laughs in hollow whispered grins then slowly slips back off to rest. Ravens perch upon a plow whose earth has frozen still its lust, captured in an eon’s tuft of grasses tall and tawny rust. They bob in exultation, guffaw in crow-ish song, as crossing o’er the rock filled stream she lifts her skirts and tip-toes on. She stumbles through the slope of hill where years before she scarred her spine, exposing what was laid beneath, now blushing from another time.

Before her stands the vacant wood where once she loved to play, wherein she loved the lack of sound, echoed in old memory found, and subtle longing just to stay.

She trips across the ashen timber, fallen fast asleep, brushes back her silver hair and enters to the cold wood’s keep. She scarcely knows her destination among the ruins thick and grey, but being more than child here, starts and stops and weaves her way toward what she knows is waiting, toward where the day so calmly ends, yet caught in hesitation, denies her fear and wanders thin. Upon the wooded knoll she finds the memory of much kinder times, where snow once graced her lengthened dress and teased her with its hushing rhymes.

Pausing there in sad recall, she hears the river’s gentle hush, dreams an ancient dream of youth when eagerly she gladly rush toward the gallant sparkles cast upon the water’s play, come to meet the boats there, and wade in just a way.

She staggers o’er the broken stones, between reposing trees, lifts her skirts at water’s edge and steps in to her knees. All the diamonds in the world are cast upon the aged stream, conjured by the sun and wind, lay sparkling in a dream. She calmly lets her aging go, reaching toward the distant shore, wanders in, gently laughing, until she is no more.

Upon the ragged edge of road, kept to course by ancient posts, a gently whispered dirge is sung by lagging winds and moonlight’s ghosts.