This Sunday’s poem of the week is: Your Story

I write and publish my poetry first on Instagram. Then on Sundays, I post the poem that received the most likes or comments here on my blog. Below is my most popular Instagram poem this week, “Your Story”.

Enjoy!

Your Story

I
A curve in the road. 
Fog coming down.
All you can see ahead
is the face of a hedge
and at your feet, a ditch.
This, after that hill
that was nothing but up,
and up and up, for miles,
and that left you, last evening,
in the dusk, with the road
all but falling away,
one foot dangling in mid-air,
dark swirling.

Knots in your insides
today, as you recall it.
A close thing is a close thing.

II
And now: this blurred outcrop
of foliage and furrow,
cutting you off, sight unseen,
in this lonely outpost,
in these boots,
leaning on this staff,
unable to step forward.
You turn that corner.
Get beyond one curve,
and another swerves up.
And up. You can’t go on.
You must go on.

III
And then, in one instant,
landscape opens out
and reveals itself.

A carpet of hillside and field.
In the distance, the town,
nestled in its valley,
two church spires,
a jigsaw of houses and shops clustered by the sea.

And the road that brought
you here. Ha! That road.
It made you fit and strong
enough to climb its twists
and turns, by twisting
and turning you as it took you
up and up, to this height here, where all the routes—the streets
and lanes and byways—
can be seen.

And it will carry you back, now,
to where you need to go,
deliver you down, with ease,
into what lies ahead.


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Orna Ross

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