THE PATHWAY ENDS

This disturbing but compelling image - one of a series by French photographer, Cal Redback - reminded me of a poem  I wrote some time ago as part of a much longer poem entitled The Path - A Pilgrimage'

The pathway ends

The pathway ends;

the wilderness prevails.

Unmanaged, un-shoe-trodden,

(a dangerous domain).

Super-human influence created this

and, where feral codes persist,

nothing lives by our laws.

Here there exists no mediation

as to whether something is

or it is not.

Interpretation is instinctive;

natural anarchy prevails.

The weasel doesn’t know how not to kill;

fox and hare have made

their own compact,

although the hare has also formed

a side allegiance with the moon;

briars create coverts,

offering sharp shelter

to shrew and chaffinch,

but the owl still hunts.

Here the badger digs his earth,

not knowing spade or plough,

and the ever/never-changing stream

runs where it has agreement

with the land.

In this world, things are not measured

by their usefulness to man;

every inch composes its own text;

a symbiotic syntax

on ever-changing pages

of the arcane book of life.

Each noise is a response

to one that went before;

every creature merges

into one that will come after.

The opening fern becomes a dragonfly;

the clear-voiced blackbird,

when it’s silent,

is an extension of the branch.

The world is an illusion;

nothing here is ever as it seems.

You may venture here if you will;

there is no-one to stop you, after all;

but a thousand eyes

will watch your every step

and half a thousand brains

will wonder why you came.

So tread carefully,

for now you are beyond the pale

and there are no pathways here,

(except the tracks of fox and deer),

and when you come, and when you go,

do so with a humbleness of soul.