Our road, rain slicked by spring storms,
slippery driving through rivulets.
Garden store trips for flower flats
bring beautiful garden blooms.
Summer haze simmers above its asphalt.
Seashore drives with our kids
from toddler through teenage years.
Back seat songsters to quiet texters.
Our road, dressed in autumn’s finest.
Bright yellows to burnt oranges,
like bouncing shimmering can-can skirts.
Costume changes in passing seasons.
Difficult on many winter days,
snow covered, sometimes impassable.
Homebound, cocooned by drifts,
content to savor relaxing by the fire.
Our road,
our passage to and from.
Just the two of us. Then three, then four.
Now as two again.
The straightaways
always faster than any other part,
made distance and time fly by.
Used to be our favorite parts.
Our road, these days?
We prefer the meandering parts.
The curves and bends that slow us down,
taking longer to reach the end of the road.
It’s Open Link Night at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Sanaa asks us to post any poem of our choosing, or an ekphrastic poem related to the image she provided above.
NOTE: Sanaa will also host dVerse LIVE on Saturday, from 10 to 11 AM New York time. Look HERE for an embedded link that will take you with audio and video to a LIVE meeting where folks from around the globe will read a poem of their choosing aloud to the group – OR just drop in to watch and listen. The more the merrier!
lillian the home poet 
This is absolutely stunning, Lillian! I especially admire this part; “Our road, dressed in autumn’s finest. Bright yellows to burnt oranges, like bouncing shimmering can-can skirts.” ❤️❤️
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Thanks, Sanaa. I liked the image and immediately thought of “the road not taken” by Sandburg, I believe and then jumped to the road taken…and Our Road came out of my pen! 🙂
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I see you went ekphrastic with the mini prompt, Lill, and love how the road led you through the seasons. I especially love the sizzling sibilance of ‘summer haze simmers above its asphalt’, and the colour and movement in ‘bright yellows to burnt oranges, like bouncing shimmering can-can skirts’. seasonal costume changes indeed!
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Thanks, Kim. I, like you, do enjoy Ekphrastic prompts. Sometimes they just hit you and something pops into your psyche about a particular illustration and sculpture or piece of artwork. 🙂
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My pleasure, Lill. Every now and then an ekphrastic prompt comes along and it just hits all the buttons.
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What a lovely ekphrastic, Lillian! The way you take us down the road through various seasons is brilliant.
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Glad you enjoyed!
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A singularly lovely response to the prompt. Loved it.
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Thank you, Dora!
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A lovely poem, Lillian. I especially like the final stanza:
“We prefer the meandering parts.
The curves and bends that slow us down,
taking longer to reach the end of the road.”
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….and even though this isn’t “our road” and we don’t even have a “road” living right in the city of Boston as we do, in a highrise, I do find the idea of slowing down to “smell the roses” as the saying goes, a delightful perogative of being a septuagenarian!
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Yes, I understood all that, and I agree, Lill. You do seem to enjoy life. And really, what would be the purposeful of speeding along and not slowing down to enjoy it while you can?!
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You not only take us down your road, Lillian but you take us through seasons and time to show us why and how you love the road – stunning…
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Even though we don’t have a road of our own….I do this the idea of slowing down in older age is a delightful perogative!
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Beautifully descriptive…slowly unwinding, slower, and slower..such is life
Lovely rhythm to this piece
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Thank you! Yes….although we live in the middle of the city (Boston) in a high rise – so we don’t really have a “road” of our own – I do think slowing down is a delightful perogative of getting older! 🙂
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Fantastic road trip, Lillian!
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Glad I could take you along!
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So beautiful, a metaphor for life and its changing journeys down different roads, yet all roads end up leading to the same place. I love the idea of autumn’s finest “like bouncing shimmering can-can skirts.
Costume changes in passing seasons.”
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Yep….even though the image isn’t “our road”….life is a journey and I truly believe one of the delights of aging, is the perogative to slow down 🙂
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Beautiful journey through the seasonal road of life.
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Glad you enjoyed, Truedessa!
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Wow, I love this. So many wonderful images. And “the straightaways the fastest parts” really hit me.
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So glad you enjoyed!
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Yes… those meandering parts, if we only took the time to learn that… wonderful write.
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Thank you, Bjorn! I do believe one of the delights of aging, and of rejuvenating (never say re-tireing!) is the perogative to slow down 🙂
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a beautiful travel through time ❤
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Glad you enjoyed it!
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very much agree with your final stanza ~
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