The Sunset Road

The shimmering highway slides away northwest,
A path of silver filigreed with gold.
This water light, at twilight lights us best;
This is why we are born -- to take this road.

This earth with all its varied pleasantry,
No hour of joy provides more rich than this
For setting forth upon a bright highway,
Soul our companion, destination--bliss.

Yet, its a path of sorrows, well I know,
For at each longing step the colors fade:
Retiring to a dying afterglow,
And ending in a wilderness of shade.

This jeweled path echoes a brilliance passed,
The glory of a sun beneath the hill
Which, fading, bears it out: "no gold can last,"
No alchemy transmute the Master's will.

This road tempts forth the hero's pilgrimage
Toward light remembered from before the fall:
The halo of the primal equipage
The radiance that once enveloped all.

And so each day at twilight I am found
At Heart's Ford gazing down the path of light,
Off, down that gleaming highway I am bound,
Where silver silence guilds my lost delight.

Gene Pinkney (1988)
The above inspired by evenings at Bigstone Lake, Hartford Beach

Copyright © 2006 Gene Pinkney
No portions may be copied without attribution