His Road To Awe Poem by Ryan Glover

He stands on the balls of his feet, wind torn jacket about his shoulders, with pencil and paper gripped tightly in his white knuckled hands.
The smooth, even tracks before him, mounds of dirt piled on both sides, from the flurry of air that thrust him backwards towards the ends of the earth.
His posture bowed forwards in brace, his eye tilted upwards chasing grace, and if he can hold fixed enough he can spy the turn of the earth and empyrean.
He is rooted in place, heels over the threshold of creation, a moveable volume in a quiescent state, but his knees are twined and timorous.
Behind him, just off the verge of the cardboard thin face, stretches the road to awe; a simple slip or fortuitous fall and he may feel the veneration.
He once thought he could never slip so long, never back slide to this edge; yet, he stands here no longer tall, no longer sturdy.
An easy task it would be to brace the whirlwind blast, and shoulder back towards an old life that had sinned the mark.
So much harder to yield to the weighing winds which seek to release this disquieted man from obligation and conscience.
The road to awe is an alluring avenue where the fall is not solely down, but it ascends and lists sinisterly, dextrally.
Here is the cobblestone where one shifts to any and every; here one becomes the sum; oh what a joyous journey it will be, apart of bird and tree, apart of call and plea.
He could accompany the breeze, compound with the earth, melt in the sea; oh why slouch on crooked knees, when one could stretch and be at ease?
Is there some reason to tread this expanse of misery? What role does this between charade play, enclosed within perfections?
He remains mounted there upon clay, himself made of mud, anticipating the rejoining of his breath and the odyssey of the requiem.

2010