Roads

Heat-pent forest and dehydrated roads —
resonant. Bike tires hum for shade
cast over bulging veins of asphalt
that crumble to mark a pine tree’s spread roots.

Children bend to destination
like imagination to plot.
Lake makes shore. Stream makes meadow.
Hidden hollows and sudden turns, wide mysteries,
quiet climax views of mountains make sky.

One day they’ll look to earth and wonder:
How did we come to be rooted here?
Perhaps then they’ll recall with kindness
the voices that bore their names
out of the cabin, out of the forest

to the fading yellow shard cut flat
and longing still for day light.