I’ve taken the highway, that path that leads from here to
there, from anywhere to everywhere it seems. Over
mountains and valleys, across rivers and streams, I’ve
hitched my way through cities and deserts, from ocean to
ocean, back home and away again. I’ve stood by the road
in the pouring rain, cars rolling by with somewhere to go.
Each time I look in a rear-view mirror, mile markers
passing by, my thoughts drift back to where I started,
when time was on my side.
There is always somewhere to go, something on my
mind, even if that something is nothing more than
venturing into the unknown. I’ve walked away from pain
and into the arms of love, each time the load a little bit
The mountain green at my right :
The sunlight yellow at my left :
The laughing winds pass between,
The river white at my left :
The flowers red at my right :
The laughing girls go between.
The clouds sail away at my right ;
The birds flap down at my left :
The laughing moon appears between.
I turned left to the dale of poem ;
I turned right to the forest of Love :
But I hurry Home by the road between.
I WALK within my heart and take
The roads he led me dear and dim
To where a fragile house I make
Of broken memories of him.
Without, they build me marble halls,
They call my comrades near and far.
Oh heart, more dear the wavering walls
Where all thy shattered treasures are.
All night she walked and dreamed on the frozen road,
She the insane one, feeling not thinking.
All night she walked and wanted to Kill,
Wanted to love and kill.
What did she want?
Nobody knew.
None of us knew why she wanted
To kill.
We were the heavy ones, heavy and sure.
The wind in the cornfields moved us not.
We the Americans, worthy and sure,
Worthy and sure of ourselves.
Tom killed his brother on Wednesday night,
Back of the corncrib, under the hill.
Then she ran to him, sobbing and calling,
She who had loved and could not kill.
From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.
The dust of many roads has been my grey wine.
Surprised beech-trees have bowed
With me, to the plodding morning
Humming tunes frail as webs of dead perfume,
To his love in golden silks, the departed moon.
Maidens like rose-flooded statues
Have bathed me in the wine of their silence.
But now I walk on, alone.
And only after watching many evenings,
Do I dance a bit with dying wisps of moon-light,
To persuade myself that I am young.
Looking up the hill
The road was long before me.
This road is longer.
We started speaking,
Looked at each other, then turned away.
The tears kept rising to my eyes
But I could not weep.
I wanted to take your hand
But my hand trembled.
You kept counting the days
Before we should meet again.
But both of us felt in our hearts
That we parted for ever and ever.
The ticking of the little clock filled the quiet room.
“Listen,” I said. “It is so loud,
Like a horse galloping on a lonely road,
As loud as that--a horse galloping past in the night.”
You shut me up in your arms.
But the sound of the clock stifled our hearts’ beating.
Our quarrel seemed a giant thing,
It made the room feel mean and small,
The books, the lamp, the furniture,
The very pictures on the wall--
Crowded upon us as we sat
Pale and terrified, face to face.
“Why do you stay?” she said, “my room
Can never be your resting place.”
“Katinka, ere we part for life,
I pray you walk once more with me.”
So down the dark, familiar road
We paced together, silently.
The sky--it seemed on fire with stars!
I said:--“Katinka dear, look up!”
Like thirsty children, both of us
Drank from that giant loving cup.
Ah, little road all whirry in the breeze,
A leaping clay hill lost among the trees,
The bleeding note of rapture streaming thrush
Caught in a drowsy hush
And stretched out in a single singing line of dusky song.
Ah little road, brown as my race is brown,
Your trodden beauty like our trodden pride,
Dust of the dust, they must not bruise you down.
Rise to one brimming golden, spilling cry!
What do I care for morning,
For a shivering aspen tree,
For sun flowers and sumac
Opening greedily?
What do I care for morning,
For the glare of the rising sun,
For a sparrow’s noisy prating,
For another day begun?
Give me the beauty of evening,
The cool consummation of night,
And the moon like a love-sick lady,
Listless and wan and white.
Give me a little valley
Huddled beside a hill,
Like a monk in a monastery,
Safe and contented and still,
One road leads out to the country-side;
One road goes by on its way to town;
And always, as long as the sun is guide,
The feet that love them go up and down.
After the evening star's white light
Has lured from the hills or the lighted town.
There are other feet all through the night.
Following dreams up and down.