The Road

The Journey and Road Ahead was this week's prompt at Jingle Poetry's Pot Luck Monday

We knew the road,
did not expect
it suddenly to end
in that dark wood
with not a sign
that we could comprehend.
Not man nor beast
nor living thing
nor artefact was there.
No movements that
might raise our hopes -
just shuffling trees
that gathered round
to block the way ahead.

They closed their ranks
on all four sides,
not rays of light
could slip between
those silent sentinels
that made a night of day.

Before the first
foot ever fell
on stones our fathers laid,
that ancient way
ran through that wood,
across those hills
and by a brook
to where the sun shone true.
And all the roads
we've laid since then
run back from there to here
or skirt the land
of Wood-Bee-There
to bring us back again.

And all the hills
that block the view
and rivers that run dry
are only there
to spur us on
to woods where we must die -
for all the folk
who don't return
are saplings in that wood,
mere shadows of
a past we knew
but didn't follow through.

And in the wood
dishonour stands
implacable
as countless folk
who never saw
the fading light
or thought the light could fade.