Prodigal

(i'm taking an Imitations class in which we write poems in the styles of various famous poets. this week is alexander pope. basically, heroic couplets — iambic pentameter and exact rhyming.)

We walk the high road with no earthly care,
Defenseless to the frigid mountain air.
We took for granted skin, teeth, flesh, and bone,
Right up until we found that they were gone.
Now all that we have left are threadbare souls
With frozen breezes wafting through the holes.
So, deep in rapturous prayer, we walk and wait,
Exhausted, sightless, for the word of fate.
All our mistakes we lose and leave behind.
They spring up in our footsteps, curled and twined.
We must seem solemn to the passers-by,
Our pale and ghostly forms strange to their eye.
One asks us, "Travelers, have you lost your way?"
But no; we have no path from which to stray.
Their voices fade as we keep on our climb.
We lose their memory like we lose the time
To distant purposes that drive us on.
Our fathers said they'd meet us in the dawn.
There, all the chill of night will come undone;
So we must climb until we find the sun.