Thursday, October 11, 2007

Backroads (2)

I've revised the poem I posted a few days ago. Here it is in its present form. And here's the AUDIO.

BACKROADS

Rennie’s, St. Patrick’s, Perry and Princetown
Roads like a lattice laid flat on the lawn
Roads like dendrites, arteries, scars
Roads sprouting chanterelles in the shade of their shoulders
Roadside ditches full of fireflies and bottles

Rennie’s, St. Patrick’s, Perry and Princetown
Unploughed roads crisscrossed by fox-tracks and hare
Smooth roads and rough roads
Roads rucked, ruddled, riddled with ruts
Roads kicking up billows of dust
Roads frost-heaved, pitted and pocked with potholes
Frozen roads thawed to boot-sucking mud
Washboard roads and corduroy roads
Closed roads
Abandoned roads gone to alders and grass

Rennie’s, St. Patrick’s, Perry and Princetown
Roads dappled with tree-filtered sun
Roads strewn with worm-lousy apples
Roads to hell
Roads over streams running through culverts
Roads for the tractor from farmhouse to field

Rennie’s, St. Patrick’s, Perry and Princetown
Roads heading home, roads leading away
Roads to nowhere
Roads up blind hills, roads into valleys
Roads ending at crumbly clifftops
Private roads
Your road, my road
Low roads and high roads

Rennie’s, St. Patrick’s, Perry and Princetown
Roads like crazy-quilt seams between swatches of potato, tobacco
         and hay
Wide roads and tight roads, straight roads and bent roads,
         forked roads and looped roads
Roads well-travelled and low-traffic roads
Floodlit roads and roads lined with eyes
Roads leading to roads leading to roads leading to roads

Rennie’s, St. Patrick’s, Perry and Princetown
Roads you can wander unsure of your bearings without being lost

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