Explorations Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

The effusions of crocuses
amidst the gloom of cypresses
is what I sought
to explore as we walked.

You talked
to me of this delightful path
that goes deep
into wooded darkness and disappears.

Faint contours still remain
of stones that have as yet not been
dislodged, where the sentinel
cypresses stand watch

amongst outpourings of flowers:
laughter and love in a summer
that cannot remember legends
of grief that laid the stones down

in symmetrical rows,
subjugated hands that could barely
lift another: stone
upon stone (toil that made

at last a roadway) each one laid
beside the previous one – towards what end
beyond a dark wood? What was
the purpose of a path at all?

Little discernible now.
Yet still in absence every breath,
every measured step, seeks purpose,
some end beyond what the mind can see.