The Path That Wasn’t There

I crawled along the face of the Earth
Looked down and saw stars beneath my feet
Over a distance I’ve crossed a thousand times.
I clung to the Earth, or the Earth clung to me
With promises of evergreen beyond the night—
They never said the path was really there
Or that floods wouldn’t come and wash it away
But search hard enough and the remnant is here.
Empty this land stretches out to dim horizon
Barren lies the plain across the valley
Through it all the rain seldom falls—
The dry earth scratches my palms
Pulling dead weight across across across to the other side.
I’ve lost the others, or maybe I left them behind
Maybe it’s their voices on the wind that beg me to wait
Or maybe they turned back long ago
When the first trees of the forest began to burn.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay