1. Spool of Roads to Sky
All roads to the sky lead to a broken bridge,
a part jutting into space and the rest a bunch
of tissues and sinews dangling over an abyss,
beyond, no resumption of the road in the mist.
(This can’t be the sky. You hate it if it is.
It’s a shocking realization of a wasted life
to find the object of your lifelong search disgustful.)
A plate on a pillar, above the baseboard,
looking like a covenant, verdigrized and mossed over,
and half-hidden behind bushy multifid leaves
of one of the rooty trees clinging on to the bank
with the unconcern of a know-it-all monkey.
Scraping off the green, the time capsule riddles
in Stone Age hieroglyphs, its few strokes deciphered
hard by a long liver saint who knew nothing
for he was conceived just yesterday, a score centuries ago
before the birth of Muhammad, the Prophet:
“The earth remains an earth.
How high a mountain…
it slopes down to its own foot
on the other side…
If you didn’t know you could
…where you came from,
take flight from here…if…need…wings.”
Roads lead not to hell nor to heaven.
Roads spool the ways around the round world.
Lake Bard 