The Road : Part One

This road is a long one
Longer than I had foreseen.
It's a lonely road;
a desert road
where the silence echoes -
rebounding along the shadowing cliffs
that hunch like imprecise omens
clustered together; brewing malice.

In other places, the silence streaks across the endless expanse
of nothing less
than nothing else:

empty land;
empty sky;
empty road;
empty hand;
empty heart.

It may be a large circle
or for all I know a meandering path -
a crooked trail of dust and tears -
but I've long lost sight of the beginning
and I fear I'm losing hope
of finding the end.

I should have - long ago -
dropped to my knees
refused to go on.
lain down and surrendered
to dirt and dust and time.

Because it's not direction I'm losing.
It's hope.
The clear, clean, beautiful thing
that is hope
shimmers in the distance
and vanishes into nothingness.

And once again,
the silence echoes.