Roads

 

I turn away from roads,
sign-posted hot macadams:
roads on smooth roads curving
looping under, up and yonder
going leading nowhere.

I dream of roads
but seek instead a tumble
stumble-footed course I know
will earn me sad wounds
cutting deep to bone.

I have learned to love
too much perhaps
rough tracks hard of going
poorly lit by stars.

Night-long voyagings
have found no easy path
to the silent gate
that is the dawn
the truth beyond
that is the banished city.

Hearing only the night-birds
booming ancient blasphemies:
moon-dark ease reflection
in the knocking stones
the river chortling.

'Roads', from Small Holes in the Silence: Collected Works (Godwit, Random House, 2011), Hone Tuwhare 2011, used by permission of Rob Tuwhare on behalf of the Estate of Hone Tuwhare. Recording from the Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archives 2004

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