Our pavements pounded, deadly treaded down;
incessant centipede of feet (those years)
breaks stones' bones, shoe slopes, heel hones and then tears
fretted fissures dreaded, grieving skin's own
street. Trail of travail! Tracks on us crack us.
Bane's lane! Heels scourge us. Curve-cursed! Wheels wrack us.
We broken roads have spoken when most whole:
when moved along. Speed seems to drive us free.
Though cold's the penny, cold the palling toll,
still dead-ended, block-chopped, curbed are we;
painfully lane-strained, driven prey, one-way:
down, down and down. Today, from your driveway
may you say all's laid paved, and gravel claims
no turn(traffic-spurned) sprawled untraveled.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
I enjoyed reading this. (aloud, too, of course) . Felt I was treading in well-trodden lanes of Celtic poets from ages immemorial. Actually fun making my mouth do all it had to do!